UN Secretary-General António Guterres has, once again, exhorted world leaders to end our deadly addiction to coal. Speaking at a Powering Past Coal Alliance event, the secretary-general urged all nations to:
Cancel all coal projects in the pipeline. The top Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, in particular, are encouraged to take the lead on this priority;
End international financing of coal and provide greater support to developing nations to help them transition to zero-carbon energy sources; and
Develop a plan to start working on the just transition.
Guterres further stated that “phasing out coal from the electricity sector is the single most important step to get in line with the 1.5-degree goal.”