Young and Cheries

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres issues a stark warning to world leaders about the state of the planet "Our planet is broken," the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, has warned. Humanity is waging what he describes as a "suicidal" war on the natural world. "Nature always strikes back, and is doing so with gathering force and fury," he told a BBC special event on the environment. Mr Guterres wants to put tackling climate change at the heart of the UN's global mission. In a speech entitled State of the Planet, he announced that its "central objective" next year will be to build a global coalition around the need to reduce emissions to net zero. Net zero refers to cutting greenhouse gas emissions as far as possible and balancing any further releases by removing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere. Mr Guterres said that every country, city, financial institution and company "should adopt plans for a transition to net zero emissions by 2050". In his view, they will also need to take decisive action now to put themselves on the path towards achieving this vision. The objective, said the UN secretary general, will be to cut global emissions by 45% by 2030 compared with 2010 levels. Has the world started to take climate change fight seriously? 'Earthshot': William and Attenborough launch prize to save planet You've got cheap data, how about cheap power too? Here's what Mr Guterres demanded the nations of the world do: Put a price on carbon Phase out fossil fuel finance and end fossil fuel subsidies Shift the tax burden from income to carbon, and from tax payers to polluters Integrate the goal of carbon neutrality (a similar concept to net zero) into all economic and fiscal policies and decisions Help those around the world who are already facing the dire impacts of climate change Lumberjack cutting tree with a chainsaw in the Amazon IMAGE COPYRIGHTEPA image captionOur war on the natural world will come back to haunt us, says Mr Guterres Apocalyptic fires and floods It is an ambitious agenda, as Mr Guterres acknowledged, but he said that radical action is needed now. "The science is clear," Mr Guterres told the BBC, "unless the world cuts fossil fuel production by 6% every year between now and 2030, things will get worse. Much worse."