Calling Climate Ambition Summit ‘Climate Hope Summit’, Secretary-General Urges ‘First-Doers’ to Take No Prisoners, Achieve 1.5°C Limit

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ closing remarks at the Climate Ambition Summit, in New York today:

I’ll be very brief.  You have already heard me yesterday in the General Assembly and this morning in the opening of our work.  But, this started as the Climate Ambition Summit and I believe it ends as the Climate Hope Summit.

And indeed, if something was clearly proven by all the testimonies that we heard today, from Governments, from regions, from cities, from companies, from asset owners, it is that the 1.5°C limit is possible to be achieved.  We are not talking about a dream.

We are talking about something that can be real if we mobilize all our energies to make it happen.  Now, the conditions are not yet fully met.  Clearly, they aren't.  We are in many aspects even moving backwards.

I was in the G20. I was quite disappointed by what the G20 concluded about climate, because the geopolitical divides are still not allowing for what must be an historic compromise between developed economies and emerging economies that are the biggest emitters.

To be able to come together, respecting the principle of common differentiated responsibilities, but all recognizing that they need to do more, and they need to do more together.  Putting together their resources and especially the technological resources that allow for the transition, to accelerate the transition that is required.

Of course, it's true that we still see many fossil fuel companies, asset owners, other companies that seem to be betting and investing in the same logic of those that, in the beginning of the century were betting and investing in horse drawn carriages, thinking that will guarantee their maximum profits.

And it is also true that many of us, believing in the need for climate action, are not yet doing enough when we look into our own carbon footprints.  So, we are not yet there.

But what has happened during this day, is that a meaningful number of countries are already fully aligning their policies with the 1.5°C goal.  What we have seen today is that there are regions and cities that are already aligning their policies, their strategies, their investments with the 1.5°C limit.

What we have seen today is that there are companies, and there are asset owners and other financial institutions that are already aligning their strategies or their portfolios with a 1.5°C strategy.  And if these first-doers and first-movers can do it, everybody can do it.

We need to create the right environment.  We need to create, as it was said, the right ecosystem, but it is possible to do it.  Now, it's not going to be easy.  But everything that really matters needs a lot of fighting to be able to get there.

So, to all the first-doers that are here today, and I think now it's a matter of doing, I'd say:  Scale up.  Bring together all those that you can bring together with you.  Go for it.  Take no prisoners.