United Nations opens two-week climate change summit in Madrid

The United Nations' two-week climate summit commenced on December 2 in Madrid. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres in his opening speech said, “The world must choose hope over surrender in the fight against climate change." The leaders of the world will face the challenge and the pressure to prove that their political strategies will help to fight the catastrophic impacts of climate change caused due to global warming. 

Climate summit in Madrid 

The discussions began on the tremendous change in the climate due to a constant increase in the temperatures in the past few years which also led to the massive melting of the ice caps in the Arctic region, followed by the wildfires ranging from the Amazonian rainforests to the Australian forests. ''The world is witnessing devastating storms and hurricanes across several tropical regions leading to severe consequences,''Guterres said. “Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?” he questioned. The Un-General secreatry further added, 

“One is the path of surrender, where we have sleepwalked past the point of no return,” he said. “The other option is the path of hope. A path of resolve, of sustainable solutions.”

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The last round of the UN climate negotiations was held in the Polish city of Katowice in December last year by Michał Kurtyka, Poland’s climate minister. During the Madrid summit, he said that raising concerns among the youth in accordance with the climate underscored the urgency of the task. Kurtyka in the official opening ceremony of the talks at a vast conference center in Madrid said “Maybe the world is not moving yet at the pace we would like but my hope is still particularly with the young people,” He further added that “They have the courage to speak up and remind us that we inherited this planet from our parents, and we need to hand it over to the future generations,”. 

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The main objective of the conference is to assemble the final groundwork required to accomplish the 2015 Paris Agreement which aims at tackling climate change. The Paris summit will enter its next phase next year. The world leaders and lawmakers are expected to implement important policies with respect to climate change. 

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