UN Chief at Stockholm+50: End suicidal war against nature

In his speech at the UN Environment meeting Stockholm+50, on Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called upon the world leaders to action regarding the environment, demanding to put an end to a senseless and suicidal war against nature.”

“Global well-being is in jeopardy in large part because we have not kept our promises on the environment. I urge countries to embrace the human right to a clean, healthy environment for everyone, everywhere,” he said.

The UN Secretary-General added that the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change show the way “but we must act on these commitments. Otherwise, they are nothing but hot air. And hot air is killing us.”

The world must go beyond the Gross Domestic Product (GDE), he noted, saying “We have not to forget that when we destroy forests, we are creating GDP and when we overfish, we are creating GDP. GDE is not the way to measure richness in the present situation in the world.”

Celebrating 50 years of the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the first world conference held to draw attention to the environmental issues for a better environment life, leaders, environmentalists, stakeholders, and several of decisions makers gathered on Thursday in Stockholm.

Under the slogan “Stockholm+50: a healthy planet for the prosperity of all – our responsibility, our opportunity” (Stockholm+50), the two-day conference provided the participants with the opportunity to know more about multilateral environmental action that achieved over 50 years.