Last chance for effective climate change actions

Editor's note: The 10-day High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development 2019, which started on Tuesday last week in the United Nation's headquarters in New York, is coming to a close. Zhong Sheng, a People's Daily columnist, comments:

At the forum, the UN Economic and Social Council issued a progress report on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals in which it pointed out that climate change is one of the biggest challenges to sustainable development. This should be a reminder once again of the urgency of tackling climate change and the need for concerted action by all parties.

It should be a consensus that policymakers in all countries take concrete measures to address climate change.

But some countries, the United States for instance which has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement on climate change, are taking a retrogressive approach to climate issues. It has not made efforts to control its greenhouse gas emissions commensurate with it being one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters and the world's largest economy perched at the top of the global value chain. Worse, the US government has time and again tried to thwart other countries' efforts to promote the green economy.

Although we are the first generation to feel the consequences of climate change, which is being caused by factors accumulated over a long period of time, we might also be the last generation that can change the course of climate change.

The UN Climate Action Summit, which is planned to be convened in New York on Sept 23, and the UN Climate Change Conference 2019, which is scheduled to be held in Costa Rica in early 2020, might be two of the last opportunities, not to pay lip service to the overdue cause, but to spur all countries to match their words with deeds.

Climate change affects everyone, and no country can stay out of it and be alone. All parties must demonstrate the spirit of mutual help and provide more effective political impetus to international cooperation on climate change and green, low-carbon, sustainable development.