Global Leaders Call for Unified Climate Action at Brookings Event

On January 24, the Brookings Institution hosted former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and former Irish President Mary Robinson for a forum, Climate Threats and Climate Justice: Action and Adaptation for Sustainable Development. The event focused on the global threat of climate change and the unequal distribution of its impacts. Both leaders called for climate change to be a top priority for governments worldwide.

In their remarks, Ban and Robinson identified 2020 as a critical year for action. They emphasized the need for nations to work multilaterally and with a spirit of global citizenship. Their statements reflect language published by the United Nations, which has called climate change “the defining issue of our time” and includes climate action as one of the 17 U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.

Robinson, who served as the U.N. special envoy for climate change from July 2014 to December 2015, was somber in her discussion of climate change as an existential threat. However, she also expressed hope that world leaders would take the actions necessary to limit warming to the Paris Agreement target of “well below 2°C.” She commended the actions taken by states and cities in the United States to reduce emissions despite the Trump Administration’s planned withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. She also praised both the “bottom-up” approach of young climate activists such as Greta Thunberg and the “top-down” strategies of large financial institutions such as investment management company BlackRock, which recently announced its intention to orient its investments toward more sustainable industries.

Robinson laid out a number of steps governments should take to address climate change. She emphasized the need for a just transition to clean energy that ensures equal access to energy and resources. To accompany this transition, Robinson also called for a price on carbon, an end to fossil fuel subsidies and extraction, and investments in renewable energy. Furthermore, both Ban and Robinson emphasized the need to build resilience to climate change, and for countries to make their national commitments (a.k.a. Nationally Determined Contributions) to the Paris Agreement more ambitious.

Equity and justice were important themes throughout the forum. Robinson framed climate change as an issue of intergenerational injustice that also exacerbates gender and geographic inequality. Ban shared this sentiment, saying that the countries that have contributed the least to climate change will be affected the soonest and the worst. To promote climate justice, Ban called for wealthy countries such as the United States, the European Union, and Japan to fulfill promises they have made to support developing countries in transitioning to renewable energy and strengthening their resilience capabilities.

The Brookings forum reinforced that all countries, especially the United States, must take significant, immediate actions to address climate change. The actions taken by the U.S. federal government, both domestically and internationally, are particularly important because of its role as a global leader.

Author: Abby Neal