(United Nations) China and the United States, the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, will be absent from the summit on climate ambition organized Wednesday by the secretary general of the United Nations who imposed an entry ticket high at this meeting, according to the list released by the UN on Tuesday.
As humanity faces unprecedented climate catastrophes, Antonio Guterres announced this “common sense” summit last December, reserved for the top of the class in terms of climate ambition.
“Tomorrow, I will welcome actors likely to move the lines at the Climate Ambition Summit,” he insisted Tuesday during his speech to the General Assembly in New York.
“We cannot afford to repeat the usual rhetoric and scapegoat or wait for others to act first.”
The list of lucky elect finally published Tuesday evening includes some notable absentees, in particular the United States, while President Joe Biden will still be in New York, and China, whose president did not make the trip to the ‘Annual general meeting. Or the United Kingdom, which is preparing to return to its objective of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, according to what its Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suggested on Tuesday.
The European Union, on the other hand, is invited to present its action plans to achieve carbon neutrality, just like Brazil, Canada, France and South Africa, as well as many countries on the front line against the impacts of global warming, such as Barbados, Samoa, or Tuvalu.
The Secretary General also invited non-state actors, such as the Governor of California and the Mayor of London.