New York: The head of the United Nations has said that fossil fuel advertising should be banned worldwide to help combat climate change.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called coal, oil and gas companies the cause of the climate crisis and urged them to ban their advertisements.
The UN chief’s warning comes as the European Union’s Climate Change Monitoring Service said the past 12 months were the hottest on record year-on-year, with temperatures on record since the pre-industrial era. The average was 1.63 degrees Celsius higher than before.
Antonio Guterres said that the godfather of the climate crisis (the fossil fuel industry) is making record profits.
He urged all countries to ban the advertising of fossil fuel companies. It also urged news media and technology companies to stop advertising fossil fuels.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a subsidiary of the United Nations, has also warned that there is an 80 percent chance that the average annual temperature will rise by 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels at least once in the next five years. Celsius should be exceeded. World leaders pledged in 2015 to halt this rise.