UN Secretary General: Climate Change an "Existential Threat" to Humanity

António Guterres
UN Secretary General António Guterres. By DFID – UK Department for International Development – https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/30720847110/, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Just in case you missed this month’s failed Bonn climate summit (don’t forget the extended session in Bangkok), or the Melbourne Climate Adaption Conference earlier this month, there is plenty of climate action happening now at the R20 World Summit in Austria.

Climate change: An ‘existential threat’ to humanity, UN chief warns global summit

None of the world’s challenges loom as large as climate change, the United Nations chief told a major climate action summit on Tuesday, reiterating his belief that global warming poses an “existential threat” to humanity.

Both leadership and innovation are essential for climate actionSecretary-General António Guterres said in his keynote address to the global gathering, known as the R20 Austrian World Summit – a long-term initiative to help regions, States and cities implement the Sustainable Development Goals and meet the Paris Agreement targets.

Mr. Guterres spelled out: “We must use all our resources to build a sense of urgency”, to raise ambition, while keeping temperature rises in the years ahead, as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible.

He said there was reason to hope, declaring that “the world is seeing a groundswell of climate action”,  citing examples, including Morocco’s building of a solar farm “the size of Paris, that will power over a million homes by 2020” and China’s achievement in already passing it’s 2020 goal of producing 105 gigawatts of solar power capacity.

Read more: https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/05/1009782

Isn’t it wonderful that we taxpayers have the opportunity to provide funds for the thousands of bureaucrats and scientists who tirelessly climate conference around the world on our behalf.

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R. Shearer
May 15, 2018 6:35 pm

Heart disease is his biggest existential threat.

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  R. Shearer
May 15, 2018 7:21 pm

…plus sleep apnea.

Curious George
Reply to  R. Shearer
May 15, 2018 7:59 pm

He looks rather prosperous.

kenji
Reply to  Curious George
May 15, 2018 8:24 pm

If he were to give-away all his personal wealth and property … and commit his life to Jesus Christ … he could drastically reduce the size of his carbon footprint, if not reduce the size of his physiognomy

saveenergy
Reply to  Curious George
May 15, 2018 11:36 pm

“and commit his life to Jesus Christ …”
& which method would you recomend – gun, high bridge, drugs, exhust gas or rope ?

Hugs
Reply to  Curious George
May 15, 2018 11:49 pm

I think what he meant, was not that climate change is an existential threat to him – which is necessarily true because he’s old and obese. I think climage change, or rather lack of it, is an existential threat to United Nations. He wants money, and he uses strong language to collect that money.
I do think we live now the peak “climate change”. There is no way the current situation can continue for a very long time. Either serious AGW happens and contrarians mostly shut up, or it doesn’t happen, and climate change talk will just dissipate.
The question to pose is how much bad things compared to good things can honestly be attributed to carbon dioxide, and what is return on investment when we try to change that result. While the answer is highly disputed, the return appears to be not remotely as high as these liars say.
What we have ended up with is talking about economy with socialists. That one never works.

wws
Reply to  Curious George
May 16, 2018 4:48 am

Hugs, agree with you about “Peak Climate Change” – the climatistas have made the same mistake that doom-preaching apocalyptics have been making for centuries. They (correctly) realized that people weren’t paying as much attention to them as they liked, and thus that they weren’t getting the level of control that they desired, so they turned up the DOOM!!!! knob to 11, and began preaching “You will all perish in flame!!!!”
as loudly as they could.
The problem, of course, is that the Perishing has got to turn up sooner or later, or people will start to figure out that the “preacher” is just running a big con game. Because this kind of thing, under different names and wearing different disguises, actually happens pretty regularly.

MarkW
Reply to  Curious George
May 16, 2018 8:15 am

saveenergy, were you trying to be funny? Because you aren’t.

Kurt
Reply to  R. Shearer
May 16, 2018 1:05 am

No, a lack of fear over climate change is the biggest existential threat to a bunch of UN bureaucrats.

MarkG
May 15, 2018 6:39 pm

The UN is an existential threat to humanity.

John
Reply to  MarkG
May 15, 2018 7:22 pm

+1

Hugs
Reply to  John
May 15, 2018 11:52 pm

² (raised to power of two)

stock
Reply to  MarkG
May 15, 2018 7:57 pm

Mark, we find common ground!

toorightmate
Reply to  MarkG
May 15, 2018 10:24 pm

Aaahhh, the UN.
The organisation which can take on any bad situation and make it infinitely worse (no strings attached and all paid for by us mugs).

WXcycles
Reply to  toorightmate
May 16, 2018 4:09 am

If we didn’t have it we’d need to re-invent it, or something really bad would go real wrong, and would cost us a lot of money, or it would never get better again.

Trevor
Reply to  MarkG
May 16, 2018 2:56 am

I also agree !
It should NOT be funded by OUR governments BECAUSE it WORKS AGAINST
OUR GOVERNMENTS and especially OUR VALUES and OUR LIFESTYLE !
THE UN is now WORKING TOWARDS “BECOMING OUR GOVERNMENT” !!!
Imagine THAT !!
Endless CHAOS ! Those “Get Smart” TV programmes were on to them though !!

Reply to  MarkG
May 16, 2018 6:16 am

+1

CD in Wisconsin
Reply to  MarkG
May 16, 2018 9:44 am

The biggest existential threat to humanity is its own stupidity.

tom0mason
May 15, 2018 6:45 pm

As the Climate Changes UN Secretary General revealed as “Existential Threat” to Humanity
There, fixed the title for you.

tomwys1
Reply to  tom0mason
May 15, 2018 7:15 pm

Nah! The Climate Change Panic is an existential threat to your wallet!!!

tom0mason
Reply to  tomwys1
May 15, 2018 7:43 pm

So is the UN a threat to everyone’s wallet. It is just an international coalition of bureaucratic freeloaders that we all pay for.

stock
Reply to  tomwys1
May 15, 2018 7:57 pm

TomO, it is far worse than just a waste of money

tom0mason
Reply to  tomwys1
May 15, 2018 9:37 pm

Indeed Stock,
The UN ensures that every problem is treated with the checkbox mentality of increased bureaucratization and institutional inertia. Even relatively small and/or easily solved problems (or imagined problems) are propagated in the UN’s bureaucratic hot house, ensuring they evolve and escalates to a real disasters requiring $billions in resources over many years or generations.

drednicolson
Reply to  tomwys1
May 16, 2018 10:03 am

Don’t trust a man to solve a problem, if the existence of his job depends on that problem remaining unsolved.

May 15, 2018 6:46 pm

Maybe it sounds less fatuous in Spanish?

Reply to  Tom Halla
May 15, 2018 6:48 pm

Ever watch Sabado Gigante? Nothing is less fatuous in Spanish… /Sarc

Reply to  David Middleton
May 15, 2018 7:00 pm

Remember i wrote “sounds less fatuous”, not that it was less fatuous. But Spanish usually sounds better than English.

Reply to  Tom Halla
May 15, 2018 9:53 pm

¡Si, eso es verdad!

Alan Tomalty
Reply to  Tom Halla
May 15, 2018 8:00 pm

He is a fossil fool

Rhoda R
Reply to  Alan Tomalty
May 15, 2018 9:38 pm

No, he dreams of US tax payer largess.

Reply to  Tom Halla
May 16, 2018 12:11 am

The guy is Portuguese. What he doesn’t realize is that fossil fuel depletion will drive the market to force a move away from fossil fuels.
As you know, I’m in the oil and gas business, so I’m very familiar with what’s going on. To complement what I’m saying I suggest you follow this tweet and track down the author’s comments about coal depletion. His ideas run parallel to mine
https://twitter.com/jritch/status/996453649743147008

MarkW
Reply to  fernandoleanme
May 16, 2018 8:17 am

That’s true, but it’s not something we need to worry about for 500 to 1000 years.

Editor
May 15, 2018 6:47 pm

Plate tectonics, entropy and evolution are actual existential threats to humanity.

Reply to  David Middleton
May 15, 2018 6:52 pm

Why isn’t the UN addressing the actual existential threats?

Alan Tomalty
Reply to  David Middleton
May 15, 2018 8:00 pm

5 trillion pieces of plastic in the world’s oceans

Reply to  David Middleton
May 16, 2018 12:37 am

Alan Tomalty
Except, the plastic can’t be found. No Pacific garbage patch.
Must be hiding in the deep ocean with the CO2.

Reply to  David Middleton
May 16, 2018 12:39 am

Sorry………not CO2, heat.
Duh!

WXcycles
Reply to  David Middleton
May 16, 2018 4:20 am

Turns out, the UN doesn’t actually control anything.

RockyRoad
Reply to  David Middleton
May 16, 2018 5:57 am

The UN controls a narrative of lies. Sad thing is they could be a force for good, but they aren’t.

MarkW
Reply to  David Middleton
May 16, 2018 8:18 am

Alan, you forgot to mention that most of them are smaller than a millimeter in diameter.

drednicolson
Reply to  David Middleton
May 16, 2018 10:26 am

Fish love to live in our sunken ships. Sometimes we deliberately scuttle decommissioned vessels in open water, as a gift to our finny friends. Better than leaving them to rust away uselessly on the surface. Real recycling in action. Our trash is their treasure.
In the same vein, plankton and bacteria love to hitch a ride on those tiny rafts of plastic debris.

barryjo
Reply to  David Middleton
May 15, 2018 7:01 pm

But there is no money in those.

BoyfromTottenham
Reply to  barryjo
May 15, 2018 8:11 pm

Alan, I’m not panicking – 5 trillion pieces of plastic in the world’s oceans equates to about 4000 pieces per cubic kilometer, or 1 piece per 250,000 cubic metres. Sounds really scary, unless you are numerate.

Reply to  barryjo
May 15, 2018 9:54 pm

Bingo.

George Lawson
Reply to  barryjo
May 16, 2018 1:06 am

And who are the clever guys who have come up with that figure anyway? Even if it is true it is minuscule In any case, none of us, apart from beach holiday makers and those living by the sea will dump plastic into the sea, and if they do, fish and other animals are not going to be so stupid as to eat it, so what is the problem? Another scare caused by ‘caring’. Greenies like Sir David Attenborough and his ilk, whose scaremongering is taken on board by mindless government officials, without thought, just to appease their voters. It is time we had another Thatcher in Britain to open up industry rather than do everything in their power to shut down every industry associated with ‘the problem’ Currently the plastics industry.

kenji
Reply to  David Middleton
May 15, 2018 8:27 pm

Explosive lava is quite a threat of existence on Hawaii at the moment.

Tom in Denver
Reply to  David Middleton
May 16, 2018 6:49 am

Not to mention the universe will eventually run out of Hydrogen to power stars. Consider Peak Hydrogen!

Reply to  Tom in Denver
May 16, 2018 7:22 am

Something else to worry about!!! (/sarc)

J Mac
May 15, 2018 6:50 pm

The only thing real threat Secretary-General António Guterres has ever had to face is being cut off from the Best Of Everything Buffet provided by Other People’s Money…

Bill P.
May 15, 2018 6:53 pm

Americans with common sense: “the UN is an existential threat to human liberty.”

stock
Reply to  Bill P.
May 15, 2018 7:58 pm

They are one of the main pushes for 1 world government, with them at the top. Shameful those beasts.

Bill Taylor
May 15, 2018 7:00 pm

climate change is the 100% natural state of the climate.,,,,,the climate is a set of statistics and those stats constantly change so their output in turn constantly changes……100% natural

kenji
Reply to  Bill Taylor
May 15, 2018 8:31 pm

According to my local weathercasters … any day that isn’t a crystal clear, mild 82deg. F. with gentle afternoon breezes … is caused by global warming aka climate change aka an existential threat to mankind.

Goldrider
Reply to  Bill Taylor
May 16, 2018 7:03 am

Statistics are being used constantly, every day in every medium, to drive “pantophobia”–the Fear of Everything! Most of the “studies” cited in daily headlines for “health” or dietary scares are either so small or so lacking in methodology they are laughable, but Scare the Masses for clicks is the name of what has become the only relevant game. The Masses being innumerate, a “2.3%” risk can scare them blind without ever asking, “2.3% of WHAT?”

May 15, 2018 7:00 pm

The climate could change some day and pose a threat to all life on the planet.
So far, it hasn’t changed at all and thus we are dealing with a bogeyman.
So some day, the bogeyman could come and pose a threat to all life on the planet.
But then, the bogeyman doesn’t really exist so we are really paying for caviar conferences only in reality.

May 15, 2018 7:01 pm

Hasn’t the World already ended several times from various “Existential Threats” ??
What’s one more time? With Feeling…

Reply to  unknown502756
May 15, 2018 7:04 pm

I’ve been following the dire predictions of the greens since about 1968, and I should have been dead already.

kenji
Reply to  unknown502756
May 15, 2018 8:35 pm

They believe that Socialism … just hasn’t been done right … yet.
Same with climate change … it just hasn’t been done right … yet.

Art
May 15, 2018 7:14 pm

“WOLF! WOOOOLF!!!”

markl
May 15, 2018 7:25 pm

Existential threat, sustainability, social justice, and anti Earth are the click bait du jour.

Jones
May 15, 2018 7:29 pm

Where did he fly from to give the speech?

nn
May 15, 2018 7:34 pm

Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming… Climate Change?
Social justice adventures (i.e. elective wars, resource claims) are first-order forcings of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Immigration Reform, including: trail of tears, excessive immigration, and progressive collateral damage..
A-borting the productive native populations (black, white, whatever) in Africa, and leaving the rest to beg for redistributive change, and charity, in some of the most fertile lands globally, is an existential threat to humanity.
The twilight faith and selective religion are existential threats, that deny individual dignity (e.g. [color] diversity or judgments) and lives deemed unworthy (e.g. planned parenthood), several million annually, globally.

RoHa
May 15, 2018 7:34 pm

That’s not an existential threat.
This is an existential threat.
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/178

mairon62
May 15, 2018 7:46 pm

As usual, the grifters at the UN are more than willing to help humanity solve problems that they don’t have.

Rhoda R
Reply to  mairon62
May 15, 2018 9:40 pm

Much, much easier than solving real problems.

Merovign
May 15, 2018 8:10 pm

Funny how literally every problem desperately demands these folks get more money and power.

May 15, 2018 8:10 pm

The fake science used to support the UN’s repressive agenda of redistributing wealth under the guise of climate reparations is an existential threat to all scientific truth as their strategy has been to replace the scientific method with political talking points reinforced with guilt and fear.

Rob
May 15, 2018 8:14 pm

The UN is a threat to civilization its self.

May 15, 2018 8:30 pm

Existential: “Of or relating to existence,” Oxford American Dictionary, Second Edition. There are two other definitions, one relating to the (failed) philosophy of existentialism, and the other to logic, clearly irrelevant to this speech. Even if the worst fears of Climate Change were true, the human race would go on. Save “Existential Threats” for alien invasions, and other subjects of horror movies. Why would the Sec Gen of the UN want to scare people this way? Or in common parlance, who put the bug up his a**?

JBom
May 15, 2018 8:56 pm

Given that the U.N. Secretary General is a convicted Pedophile it stands to reason that the U.N. Secretary General is and Existential Threat to the children of New York City and Burrows.

Warren Blair
May 15, 2018 9:13 pm

UN spends over 800 million annually on air travel (not including peace-keeping flights).
Does the UN have a web-page detailing their carbon footprint?
No.
An existential threat eh!

RockyRoad
May 15, 2018 10:00 pm

The UN is the biggest existential threat to humanity, not (their version of) climate change.

afonzarelli
May 15, 2018 10:50 pm

What does Camus have to do with climate change anyway?

RoHa
Reply to  afonzarelli
May 16, 2018 12:12 am

Producing CO2 by his heavy smoking.
http://existentialcomics.com/philosopher/Albert_Camus

Len Jay
May 15, 2018 10:56 pm

The U.N. Secretary General in the video above is giving a speech. Just that – giving a speech.
Watch him and you’ll see he doesn’t really mean what he is saying, he’s just pushing an agenda.