As Climate Talks Begin, U.N. Chief Warns Against 'Fiddling' While The Planet Burns

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres at the opening day of the COP25 climate conference on Monday in Madrid. "Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand? That fiddled while the planet burned?" he said.

The United Nations climate change conference began with a bracing warning: We are running late, and that is going to make this harder.

"Millions throughout the world, especially young people, are calling on leaders from all sectors to do more, much more to address the climate emergency we face," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday.

"Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand? That fiddled while the planet burned?" he said.

A key objective of the conference, called COP25, is for nations to commit to how they will operationally achieve the emissions reductions agreed to in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Countries signing the Paris Agreement agreed to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, and ideally 1.5 degrees. But we are rapidly losing the chance to hit that 1.5-degree mark, according to a U.N. report released last week.

"Ten years ago, if countries had acted on the science, they would have needed to reduce emissions by 3.3% each year," said Guterres. "Today, we need to reduce emissions by 7.6% each year."

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