António Guterres UN Secretary-General's address at Columbia University: "The State of the Planet"
Reprinted from here. President Bollinger, Dear friends, I thank Columbia University for hosting this gathering — and I welcome those joining online around the world. We meet in this unusual way as we enter the last month of this most unusual year. We are facing a devastating pandemic, new heights of global heating, new lows of ecological degradation and new setbacks in our work towards global goals for more equitable, inclusive and sustainable development. To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken. Dear friends, Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal. Nature always strikes back -- and it is already doing so with growing force and fury. Biodiversity is collapsing. One million species are at risk of extinction. Ecosystems are disappearing before our eyes. Deserts are spreading. Wetlands are being lost. Every year, we lose 10 million hectares of forests. Oceans are overfished -- and choking with plastic waste. The carbon dioxide they absorb is acidifying the se...