Former US president Bill Clinton yesterday urged leaders of the world’s cities, which produce more than two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions, to act swiftly to save the planet for their grandchildren.
Executives from the 40 largest cities plus 17 other municipalities are attending the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit in Seoul — the third such event since 2005.
The world can fight global warming in a way that makes sense economically, and the battle can even help countries overcome the ongoing economic crisis, Clinton said.
It’s possible today for economies to grow without emitting greenhouse gases, and the world must act now to cut emissions before it is too late, he said.
“We know that if we don’t reduce greenhouse gases by somewhere in the range of 80 percent by 2050, bad things are going to happen,” Clinton said in a keynote speech.
Global warming could lead to a drop in food production and access to water, creating new dangers to public health, Clinton said.
“It is absolutely certain if we let the worst happen, then the consequences will be so severe that we won’t be able to save the planet for our grandchildren,” Clinton said.
Mayors and municipal leaders will be discussing retrofitting buildings, energy-efficient lighting, building infrastructure for green vehicles and renewable energy technology.
Environmentally friendly products, including electric cars and motorcycles, are on display at a separate expo.
Clinton acknowledged the reluctance in some cities to spend the money needed to go green at a time of economic hardship.
He said many still harbor the outdated notion that pollution is a necessary byproduct of industry, and that “a nation could not become rich, maintain a standard of living and improve it without putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”
“That is simply not true today,” he said.
Making the investment to reduce greenhouses gases may even help countries mired in the economic crisis by creating jobs, Clinton said.
He also said a variety of loan guarantee mechanisms should be developed so companies can take out bank loans for green projects and repay them using their utility savings.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema