United Nations leaders and delegates kicked off COP25 on Monday in Madrid, launching a two-week summit on climate change with warnings over the fast-rising perils of a global environmental challenge, according to aljazeera.com.
"By the end of the coming decade we will be on one of two paths, one of which is sleepwalking past the point of no return," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his opening address.
"Do we want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand and fiddled as the planet burned?"
The other pathway, Guterres said, was to aim for carbon neutrality by 2050.
"There are calls from young people to do more, much more. They know we need to get on the right path today, not tomorrow, and COP25 offers us an opportunity."
The required global reduction of carbon emissions has more than doubled from 3.3 percent 10 years ago to seven percent now, he said, while the world was "still waiting for transformative movement from most G20 nations" responsible for three-quarters of carbon emissions.
