UN Secretary General wants to ban ads for fossil fuel companies
During his speech at the Natural History Museum in New York, on the occasion of World Environment Day, António Guterres made a series of strong statements. Indeed, as reported The Guardian, the Secretary General of the United Nations notably compared the climate crisis to the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, making the following statement: “In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs, we are the meteor. We are not only in danger, we are the danger.”
Furthermore, Guterres said: “We are playing Russian roulette with our planet”, relays the British media. Adding that humanity must “take the exit ramp from the highway that goes to hell”.
If the Secretary General was more virulent than usual on the climate issue, it is because the climate change department of the European Commission recently announced that the month of May 2024 would be the hottest month in may never be recorded. This does not constitute an isolated record, since “this is the twelfth consecutive month to distinguish itself in this way”, underlines The weather.
More generally, asserts the Swiss daily, “continued warming has been confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), in a new report, released to the public on June 5. The latter indicates that there is an 80% chance that global temperatures will exceed 1.5°C of warming over a year, for at least one of the next five years. The probability of approaching this threshold has only increased in recent years, to the point where it is now very likely.”
“The godfathers of climate chaos”
With such figures on the table, Guterres logically wanted to sound the alarm, which he did by directly attacking companies in the fossil fuel sector, which he called “the godfathers of climate chaos”. Not limited to this invective, the secretary general also made a concrete proposal, further indicates the Guardian : “Many governments limit or ban advertising for products that harm human health, such as tobacco, did he declare. I therefore call on all countries to ban advertising for fossil fuel companies. And I urge media and technology companies to stop accepting fossil fuel advertising.”
Given the economic interests at stake, this proposal is likely to remain a dead letter.
