“We are the last generation that can prevent irreparable damage to our planet,” General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés (Ecuador) warned the gathering in her opening remarks, stressing that 11 years are all that remain to avert catastrophe.

Highlighting the meeting’s theme, Ms. Espinosa called for an intergenerational approach to climate change. “Climate justice is intergenerational justice,” she said, calling on States to act collectively and responsibly.

Pointing to intensified calls by youth leaders for action on climate change, she said that 2019 must be a year of climate action at all levels.

Drawing inspiration from the thousands of students worldwide demanding tangible action, she called on world leaders to make 2020 the last year carbon emissions increase due to human activities.

To achieve these goals, people worldwide must change their patterns of consumption, she said, noting that, every year, 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted as some 2 billion people suffer of hunger and malnutrition.

Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change

Professor Johan Rockstrom, the top climate scientist. Rockstrom said that “There is a risk of disappointment in the UN process because of the inability to recognise that there is an emergency ”, Rockstrom has confirmed to Extinction Rebellion that the world remains on course towards the loss of billions of human lives:

“a 4 C world will not, as far as we know today, be able to accommodate an 8 billion world (i.e., our current population of 7.7, rounded to eight), or maybe not even half of that (my judgment). This is, in my assessment, a reasonable (but still disastrous and dramatic) outcome, i.e., that we are moving towards a climate state that could not accommodate today’s population, much less a 10 billion population, and which may cut population down dramatically from current totals.”

Extinction Rebellion on COP25: ‘What a pile of shite this is

.

In our complex, interdependent global ecosystem, life is dying, with species extinction accelerating. The climate crisis is worsening much faster than previously predicted. Every single day 200 species are becoming extinct. This desperate situation can’t continue.

Political leaders worldwide are failing to address the environmental crisis. If global corporate capitalism continues to drive the international economy, global catastrophe is inevitable.

Complacency and inaction in Britain, the USA, Australia, Brazil, across Africa and Asia all illustrate diverse manifestations of political paralysis, abdicating humankind’s grave responsibility for planetary stewardship.

International political organizations and national governments must foreground the climate-emergency issue immediately, urgently drawing up comprehensive policies to address it. Conventionally privileged nations must voluntarily fund comprehensive environment-protection policies in impoverished nations, to compensate the latter for foregoing unsustainable economic growth, and paying recompense for the planet-plundering imperialism of materially privileged nations.

With extreme weather already hitting food production, we demand that governments act now to avoid any risk of hunger, with emergency investment in agro-ecological extreme-weather-resistant food production. We also call for an urgent summit on saving the Arctic icecap, to slow weather disruption of our harvests.

We further call on concerned global citizens to rise up and organize against current complacency in their particular contexts, including indigenous people's rights advocacy, decolonization and reparatory justice – so joining the global movement that's now rebelling against extinction (e.g. 'Extinction Rebellion' in the UK).

We must collectively do whatever's necessary non-violently, to persuade politicians and business leaders to relinquish their complacency and denial. Their "business as usual" is no longer an option. Global citizens will no longer put up with this failure of our planetary duty.

Every one of us, especially in the materially privileged world, must commit to accepting the need to live more lightly, consume far less, and to not only uphold human rights but also our stewardship responsibilities to the planet.

Dr Vandana Shiva Delhi, India Naomi Klein Author Noam Chomsky Laureate professor, University of Arizona, Institute Professor (emeritus) MIT, USA Prof AC Grayling Master of the New College of the Humanities, London, UK Philip Pullman UK Dr Rowan Williams UK Bill McKibben Founder, 350.org, Brooklyn, New York, US -see full list of signers-

Climate Emergency: An Open Letter to Concerned Global Citizens

.