Paris climate goals not enough, stop building new coal plants: Antonio Guterres

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for immediate climate action to officials gathered in the United Arab Emirates. Guterres is calling on governments to stop building new coal plants by 2020, cut greenhouse emissions by 45 per cent over the next decade and replace fossil-fuel driven economies.

Lauding the Paris climate accord, Guterres said even if its promises are fully met, the world still faces what he describes as a catastrophic three-degree temperature rise by the end of the century.

Under President Donald Trump, the US has announced its withdrawal, effective next year, from the Paris agreement.

On Saturday, nineteen members of the G20, except the US, on Saturday reaffirmed their commitment to the "full implementation" of the Paris climate deal, agreeing to look into a wide range of clean technologies and approaches.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other world leaders attending the G20 summit in the Japanese city of Osaka agreed to a climate change deal similar to that signed in Argentina last year.

As at the 2018 G20 meeting in Buenos Aires, the new declaration said that the US reiterated its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement "because it disadvantages American workers and taxpayers."

The document said the signatories to the Paris Agreement reaffirmed their commitment to its full implementation.

To help achieve climate change prevention, the G20 nations "will look into a wide range of clean technologies and approaches, including smart cities, ecosystem and community-based approaches, nature based solutions and traditional and indigenous knowledge," the final document said.

The text maintained a "similar" commitment to fight climate change as in previous declarations in Buenos Aires and Hamburg, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a press conference at the end of the summit.

"We've succeeded after days and nights of negotiations to have again, after all, a 19 to 1 declaration, where the 19 signatory countries of the Paris agreement commit to the same things as we did in Buenos Aires," Merkel was quoted as saying by the Politico.

"We say that this process is 'irreversible' and we say that we have made our commitments and will do a review again in 2020 to see whether we must make new commitments," she said.