On Wednesday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for the end of global fossil fuel subsidies, which purportedly totaled around $7 trillion in just 2022 alone.
In his opening speech at the Climate Ambition Summit at the United Nations Headquarters, Gutteres said that with the overuse of fossil fuels, “humanity has opened the gates to hell.”
Guterres then outlined his “Acceleration Agenda,” which could help nations reach goals necessary to slow climate change, to the summit.
If these goals are left unmet and fossil fuels subsidies persist, Guterres warned that the planet will be put on an irreversible collision course to a 2.8 degree Celsius temperature rise that could have devastating effects on the global population.