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The climate crisis arrives Monday at the United Nations at a different summit than usual. It is not a meeting that is part of the international process of the Treaties of Kyoto and Paris, which set limits on the emissions of gases that cause the so-called greenhouse effect under which the atmosphere and the oceans are warming, and the latter are becoming acidified . It is an initiative of the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, that seeks both to strengthen this process and to mobilize world public opinion. Guterres, therefore, has bet a huge amount of political capital. This is literally 'your' summit.
Guterres has put young people at the center of the meeting , and has spared no effort in trying to mobilize world public opinion. As stated on Saturday by the Spanish Minister of Energy Transition, Teresa Ribera, " Guterres has called this great event to awaken the mood of the rulers , but also that of all the important actors in the field of climate action." And, according to the minister, these actors "are not only diplomats, but above all governments and institutions, and also the boards of business administration, which have to consider the evolution of their business in the time to come. And , also, civil society. "
That is what explains the presence of the 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg in New York, as well as the celebration, on Saturday, of a special meeting of young people against climate change at the UN. The importance of young people in this meeting cannot be underestimated because it is a consequence of the explosion of the idea of "intergenerational injustice ", that is, the idea that the cost of the emissions that are produced today from gases that heat the atmosphere and The sea will fall on future generations.
It is not a new strategy. Three and a half years ago, the then US Secretary of State, John Kerry, appeared at the UN with his two-year-old granddaughter, Isabel Dobbs-Higginson, in her arms, at the signing ceremony of the Paris Agreement. But, at this summit, the UN has decided that young people do not go hand in hand with politicians.
The decision of the UN to bet on young people and to give civil society a much more prominent role than usual in this type of meetings is a break with the usual policy of the organization , which always moves at the governmental level, and with steps marked by diplomacy. So, when today Thunberg addresses dozens of heads of state and government from around the world at the UN - among them, the Spanish Pedro Sánchez, the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron, and the British Boris Johnson - will be sending a clear message that the United Nations is, for the first time in its history, determined to use street pressure to force states to act.
The US will not be
That is a drastic change in an organization like the United Nations. But he's not the only one. Guterres has decided not to invite countries that , in the opinion of the United Nations, are not having an active contribution in the fight against climate change . That has left out of the summit some of the world's greatest powers, such as Japan - the third largest economy on Earth - and South Africa, for its decision to build new coal-fired power plants, the source of energy that emits more CO2, the main gas that produces the 'greenhouse effect'.
Nor will Australia, for its support for coal mining, or Brazil, Saudi Arabia, or Poland, due to its criticisms of the Paris Agreement against climate change of 2016. That has also made the biggest economic, political and military power of the world, the United States, is not in New York, since Donald Trump decided to withdraw from that same Agreement in 2017. The presence of a series of state governors who are engaged in the fight against global warming does not prevent the paradox that the country in whose territory is the headquarters of the United Nations will not be present at the summit.
Guterres' decision not to invite governments that are not playing an active role in solving the problem has caused a series of enormous diplomatic tensions. As EL MUNDO has learned, there were still countries on Saturday that were trying to be included in the event. Some absences are very striking. That is the case in Poland, for example, which a year ago was the host, in the city of Katowice, of the UN Climate Conference, in which the work launched with the Paris Accords was followed. At the same time, the UN decision to involve civil society can give more impetus to the initiative or introduce new actors that escape the control of the organization and governments and exacerbate tensions throughout the debate.
Guterres, therefore, has chosen to put the UN at the forefront of the fight against the climate crisis. He has tried to bring together developed and developing countries into nine working groups - one of them co-directed by Spain and Peru - to direct actions in this area. But the UN does not have the necessary strength to lead the process. And no country, for now, seems to have emerged as a leader. The commitment of the UN secretary general can end in a dead way , like so many other initiatives of the United Nations, or it can be the catalyst for change.
Between December 2 and 13, Chile will host the next UN climate summit (formally called the Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, COP25).
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