GENEVA, May 9 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the two-day session of the Chief Executives Board of the UN System here on Thursday, during which the heads of the UN entities highlighted the concrete steps to address climate change ahead of the UN Climate Summit.
In a joint statement, the heads of UN agencies said they are committed to strengthening their organization's responsiveness to member states' needs to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change.
"We, the leaders of the United Nations system organizations, appeal to Member States to step up ambition and take concrete action to limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and adapt to the effects of climate change," the statement said.
In the statement titled "Joint Appeal from the UN System to the Secretary-General's Climate Action Summit", the heads of UN agencies also called upon member states to ensure that appropriate adaptation measures are taken to protect people, livelihoods and ecosystems, particularly people in those regions most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Earlier this year, Guterres called on world leaders to go to New York for the "Climate Action Summit" scheduled for Sept. 23.
"Climate finance is critical to deliver action on the necessary scale to address climate change," the UN officials said in the statement, urging developed countries to deliver on the goal of mobilizing governments and the private sector to achieve the goal of 100 billion U.S. dollars per year by 2020 to support climate action in developing countries and further enhance their efforts on scaling-up financial resources.
Calling upon member states to pursue ambitious climate actions with opportunities for innovations in advancing sustainable development, the statement said the UN system supports the enhancement of capacity of members to develop and utilize relevant data and technological innovations to find solutions for climate and sustainable development challenges and disaster risk reduction and management.
"The United Nations system is committed to raising its own ambition to take concrete steps to combat climate change and to integrate more systematically sustainable development considerations into how we operate," the statement added.
"At the Secretary General's Climate Action Summit in September, we will present our system-wide efforts towards reaching climate neutrality in our internal operations by 2020 and enhancing environmental and social sustainability in all UN activities," it noted.
