Big Idea 2014: The Year for Climate Action

Ban Ki-moon

My big idea is not new. Nor is it, in the larger sense, mine. But it is an idea that will be one major focus of my work next year, and one in which I believe deeply. In 2014, we must turn the greatest collective challenge facing humankind today – climate change – into the greatest opportunity for common progress towards a sustainable future. Next year is the year for climate action.

We can delay no longer. Our hopes of eradicating poverty, achieving the Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015 and implementing an ambitious development agenda beyond 2015 rest on tackling this challenge now. The costs of inaction will only rise.

Countries have agreed to finalize an ambitious global legal agreement on climate change by 2015. But there is a steep climb ahead and 2014 is a pivotal year for generating the action and momentum that will propel us forward.

Ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising and the oceans are becoming more acidic. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise – we are the first humans ever to breathe air with 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Extreme weather events – heat waves, floods, droughts and tropical cyclones – are more frequent and severe.

We need look no further than the recent catastrophe in the Philippines. All around the world, people now face and fear the wrath of a warming planet.

The science is clear. Human activities are the dominant cause of climate change. We cannot blame nature.

Rising to the challenge of climate change is a big idea for next year. But it is also a big idea for the future – of humankind and of our planet. It is a momentous responsibility to shoulder, but I firmly believe that every one of us can step up and become leaders in combating climate change, promoting sustainable development and building lives of dignity for all.

Future generations will judge our action on this issue. In 2014, we have the chance to step over to the right side of history. Let’s take it.

Read the entire post here.