I think we have to recognize that we are playing catch-up, that in fact because of foot dragging, particularly on the part of the United States, not only with Trump, but even with previous administrations, we have ended up with the situation that we are basically sort of one minute to midnight in terms of the climate crisis. So we have to be very clear that when we judge the summit, this summit must meet this criteria: Does what comes out of the summit reflect this reality, that the decade that we are in is the most urgent and most consequential decade in humanity’s history, and the changes that we make in this decade will determine what future we have or whether we have a future at all?
So, what we need to be looking at from this summit to judge whether it has understood the urgency sufficiently is whether in fact we get baby steps in the right direction or rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, or whether we get a real commitment of understanding that we need structural and systemic change with regard to our economic system, our energy system, our food system, our transport system and so on. Bottom line is, given the scale of the crisis right now, the only thing that is going to get us out of it is not baby steps in the right direction; it’s going to be big, bold, courageous, structural and systemic change to every aspect of society. And
— source democracynow.org | Apr 23, 2021