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President Higgins welcomes UN Secretary General’s call on Climate Action

Date: Mon 10th Sep, 2018 | 20:28

President Michael D. Higgins has welcomed the speech by UN Secretary General António Guterres in which he called for urgent action to halt climate change.


“In today’s speech, the United Nations Secretary General announced his intention to convene a Climate Summit to bring climate action to the top of the international agenda. This is a timely initiative, urgently needed, as the global response to the threat of climate change has not been nearly sufficient.

Scientists have warned us for decades that climate change is happening and the many organisations that I have met are reporting that, already, changing climate conditions are causing real and lasting problems for vulnerable communities, islands and nations. 

The global community has agreed, through the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement, has accepted the need to tackle climate change. Through these accords, the foundations of a new model for human flourishing and social harmony have been laid; one that is shared between all those who dwell on this planet, and – crucially – between this generation and those yet to come. 

Today, the UN Secretary General has reminded us of the enormous costs of failing to act, both in the financial sense and in relation to its consequences for the future of humanity.

We should, at global and national level, respond to his call to action, and seize the opportunity to promote the modes of thought, and the new approaches to economic prosperity, that can restore the links between ecology, economy and ethics.