Asia must quit ‘coal addiction’ to protect people from climate change: UN chief

The UN chief on Saturday warned Asia to quit its “addiction” to coal, as climate change threatens hundreds of millions of people vulnerable to rising sea levels across the region. The warning follows fresh research this week predicting that several Asian megacities, including Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Mumbai, are at risk of extreme flooding linked to global warming.

Antonio Guterres said Asian countries need to cut reliance on coal to tackle the climate crisis, which he called the “defining issue of our time”. “There is an addiction to coal that we need to overcome because it remains a major threat in relation to climate change,” he told reporters ahead of a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Bangkok on Saturday. He said countries in the region need to be on “the front line” of the fight by introducing carbon pricing and reforming energy policies. “We are lagging behind,” he said, adding that the rollback of coal could help curb rising global temperatures.