LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II mentioned Monday that “the time for phrases has now moved to the time for motion” on decreasing carbon emissions, and urged world leaders to consider future generations when negotiating on the United Nations local weather summit in Scotland.
The 95-year-old queen had been scheduled to attend COP26 in particular person however as a substitute delivered her message by way of video hyperlink after being suggested to relaxation at house by medical doctors. She spent an evening in a hospital for unspecified causes final month.
“It’s the hope of many who the legacy of this summit — written in historical past books but to be printed — will describe you because the leaders who didn’t go up the chance, and that you simply answered the decision of these future generations,” she mentioned.
Elizabeth mentioned she hoped leaders would depart “this convention as a neighborhood of countries with a dedication, a want and a plan to handle the affect of local weather change; and to acknowledge that the time for phrases has now moved to the time for motion.”
COP26 goals to construct on the legally binding pledges of the 2015 Paris Settlement, which aimed to maintain world temperature rises to “effectively beneath” 2 levels Celsius this century, ideally 1.5 levels.
President Joe Biden is amongst many world leaders who say they need to make tackling local weather change a precedence. However guarantees made by world governments thus far are placing the Earth on observe for two.7 levels warming, in keeping with a report launched final week by the U.N. Surroundings Programme.
These temperature rises would seemingly set off extra excessive climate, and result in rising seas that can imperil low-lying international locations and cities, in keeping with consultants.
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On the necessity to do extra, the queen mentioned Monday, “In fact, the advantages of such actions is not going to be there to get pleasure from for all of us right here as we speak: none of us will reside perpetually. However we’re doing this not for ourselves however for our youngsters and our youngsters’s youngsters, and people who will observe of their footsteps.”
Elizabeth, who has met nearly each U.S. president since she ascended to the throne in 1952, mentioned what made the best world leaders “particular” was primarily based on “what they do for the individuals of tomorrow.”
She additionally paid tribute to her late husband, Prince Philip, who died at 99 earlier this yr. She remembered how he had warned an instructional gathering in 1969 about the necessity to deal with points surrounding air pollution.
“If the world air pollution state of affairs will not be important in the meanwhile,” she quoted him as saying, “the state of affairs will grow to be more and more insupportable inside a really quick time.”
Prince Charles, who’s inheritor to the throne, helped kick off the practically two-week COP26 assembly in Glasgow.
An avid environmentalist, he referred to as for international locations to undertake a “warlike footing” in response to world warming.
