UNITED NATIONS: In yet another nod to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson mentioned Pakistan’s 10 billion trees initiative during his speech at the United Nations.
The UK Prime Minister urged world leaders to follow Imran Khan’s lead and plant 10 billion trees, saying mankind must “grow up” and address climate change.
“I encourage everyone to follow in the footsteps of Pakistan’s Imran Khan, who has vowed to plant 10 billion trees,” he added.
The billion tree initiative has been widely praised across the world as an important step toward reducing environmental damages.
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, Johnson stated that it is now or never if the world is to reach its target of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.
In six weeks, Prime Minister Johnson will host a major United Nations climate meeting in Glasgow, Scotland. He is using his visit to the United Nations Headquarters in New York to urge nations for stricter emissions-cutting targets and more funding to assist impoverished countries in cleaning up their economies.
Amid the metaphors, the British leader made a series of calls for action to the UN member states, including:
- to restrain the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees;
- to pledge collectively to achieve carbon neutrality – net zero – by the middle of the century;
- all countries to step up and commit to very substantial carbon reductions by 2030, in particular with coal, cars, cash and trees;
- the developing world to end the use of coal power by 2040 and the developed world to do so by 2030;
- China to phase out the domestic use of coal;
- only zero-emission vehicles to be on sale across the world by 2040;
- every country to cut carbon by 68%;
- to halt and reverse the loss of trees and biodiversity by 2030;
- all nations to follow the example of Prime Minister Imran Khan to plant 10 billion trees, and,
- governments to work with financial institutions – the IMF and the World Bank – to leverage trillions of dollars in the private sector.
Johnson concluded his speech with a plea for world leaders to do right by the next generations.