United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced the appointment of US businessman and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg as his Special Envoy for Climate Action on Monday, which is a promotion from his former position as Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change.
The announcement was made at a ceremony held at the United Nations headquarters in New York, where United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres praised the work that Michael Bloomberg has already done and been doing. Guterres highlighted Bloomberg’s leadership in the effort to mobilize society and businesses in leading climate action.
“Your permanent action, mobilizing cities, but also businesses, states in the United States, countries around the world, has made an enormous difference, and makes us believe that we will soon be running faster than climate change, that we will soon be starting to defeat climate change, that the Paris Agreement can be fully implemented, but with an enhanced ambition because we need that enhanced ambition in order to make sure that we reach the end of the century with an increase in temperature of about 1.5 and below 2 percent.”
Bloomberg has been instrumental in several high-priority and high-profile agreements made over the past year or so, focused on rallying non-state actors such as cities and businesses in combatting climate change. Alongside California Governor Jerry Brown, Bloomberg helped launch “America’s Pledge” on climate change in July of 2017, a new initiative that gathers and quantifies the actions being taken by states, cities, and businesses across the United States in meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
The new Envoy role for Bloomberg will see him engaging and inviting leaders from governments, business, finance, and civil society organizations in much the same way he has been doing in America. The move is further proof that non-state actors may be the primary players if we are to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
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