SHEFIK:
During his virtual press conference Guterres gave a nod to the Paris Agreement. He said the pandemic could create an opportunity to rebuild the global economy along more sustainable lines. But he made it clear the world must focus first on the coronavirus crisis.
As it has struggled to tackle global warming for a quarter century, the world is also finding itself hard-pressed to respond to a global pandemic.
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The United Nations’ main climate change initiatives have been moved online or are on hold. Several planned U.N. climate action gatherings have been canceled or delayed (Climatewire, March 12).
The offices of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have canceled all in-person meetings and foreign travel, and are working to arrange online conferences where possible.
Most recently, the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a body based in Montreal, called off a series of regional meetings meant to roll out a new emissions trading program to begin this month.
ICAO said the regional planning seminars for its carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation simply have been postponed. But no new dates have been proposed.
With talk that the crisis could extend into the summer—or beyond—more gatherings could face a similar fate. Those include the U.N. Ocean Conference planned for Portugal in early June, and the World Conservation Congress at the end of June to be hosted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Marseilles, France