B.Read each statement and check ‘T’ if you believe it’s true and ‘F’ if you believe it’s false. Then listen to the speech to confirm your answers.
C.Listen again and fill in the notes.
Script
We are all here today because the climate countdown has begun, and we are nowhere near where we need to be. Science tells us we must limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. We are on track for three degrees at least.
Billions of people around the world are already suffering from our failure to act, a consequence of our outdated addiction to fossil fuels. Climate disruption is causing unprecedented wildfires, more intense and frequent cyclones, floods, droughts, and other weather extremes. Toxic air pollution, a major concern in our cities, is choking our urban centers and posing severe health risks. Biodiversity, encompassing the rich ecosystems found on land and sea, is under growing pressure due to human activities.
No country is immune to the climate crisis. But in every country, it is the poorest and most vulnerable who are hardest hit, despite having done the least to cause the problem. Over the past 25 years, the richest 10 percent of the global population has been responsible for more than half of all carbon emissions, and the poorest 50 percent were responsible for just seven percent of emissions. Injustice and inequality of this scale is a cancer. If we don’t act now, this century may be one of humanity’s last.
That is why I’m urging governments to take six climate-positive actions to recover better together: invest in green jobs; do not rescue polluting industries, especially coal; end fossil fuel subsidies, and put a price on carbon; take climate risks into account in all financial and policy decisions; work together in solidarity; and most important, leave no one behind.
This is the course of action that thousands of companies, cities, states, regions, universities, and investors are already choosing by committing to net-zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. They are moving to protect people and our planet. Momentum is building.
We must make sure that each country, each city, company, bank, and international organization has a transition plan to reach net-zero emissions. We also need to see much greater efforts to build resilience in vulnerable countries, which do the least to cause climate change but bear the worst impacts. In the big coastal deltas, the islands of the Pacific and the Caribbean, and dry lands such as the African Sahel region, we must help people adapt to climate impacts.
To those who have already joined the race, I applaud you, but I also ask you to do more and much faster. You have raised your ambition and your commitment. We need you now to also raise your voices and push governments to do better, especially those who emit the most. To those yet to join, my message is simple: We can only win the race to zero together. So I urge you all to get on board.