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United Nation's Secretary General António Guterres is no stranger to colourful language, and his impassioned plea at the Climate Ambition Summit held in New York on Wednesday was no different.
Key points:
- The summit brought together world leaders from government, business and not-for-profits
- Major polluting countries including the UK, US, China and France did not attend
- The UN has found a huge gap between countries' commitments and actions to reduce fossil fuel emissions
"Humanity has opened the gates of hell," he said, in his opening of the one-day event.
"Climate action is dwarfed by the scale of the challenge.
"If nothing changes, we are heading towards a 2.8 degrees [Celsius] temperature rise, towards a dangerous and unstable world.
"But the future is not fixed, it is for leaders like you to write it."
The summit was designed to be a boost for countries to up their ambitions in the lead up to the annual UN Climate Change conference, known as COP or Conference of Parties.
So how is the world tracking in meeting it's ambitions to reduce fossil fuel emissions and slow global warming?
What do the numbers tell us?
We're falling behind.
Last week, the UN released a report on its first global stocktake, which is designed to measure progress on the Paris Agreement, an international treaty adopted in 2015 to limit warming to below 2C.
While the stocktake found progress had been made, there was still a huge gap between commitments and what countries were actually doing to achieve them.
"Against forecasts made prior to its adoption, the Paris Agreement has led to contributions that significantly reduce forecasts of future warming, yet the world is not on track to meet the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement," the report found.
"Global emissions are not in line with modelled global mitigation pathways consistent with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.
"And there is a rapidly narrowing window to raise ambition and implement existing commitments in order to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels."
That's why UN Secretary General António Guterras was again calling for an acceleration of the phase out of fossil fuels.
"The move from fossil fuels to renewables is happening but we are decades behind," he said.
"We must make up time lost to foot dragging, arm twisting and the naked greed of entrenched interest raking in millions from fossil fuels."
Which countries are falling behind?
On the same day the United Kingdom didn’t attend the Climate Ambition Summit, its Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a major U-turn on key climate targets.
That included pushing back the deadline for the end of new petrol and diesel car sales, and scrapping energy efficiency requirements for landlords.
"When our share of global emissions is less than 1 per cent, how can it be right that British citizens are now being told to sacrifice even more than others?" Mr Sunak said on Wednesday.
''I'm confident that we can adopt a more pragmatic, proportionate and realistic approach to meeting net zero that eases the burdens on working people.
"Now, I'm not saying there will be no hard choices and nor am I abandoning any of our targets and commitments. I am unequivocal that we will meet our international agreements, including the critical promises in Paris and Glasgow, to limit global warming to 1.5C.''
Other major polluting countries also absent at the climate summit were the United States, China and France.
In Australia, the latest quarterly data released last month showed greenhouse gas emissions actually increased slightly in the 12 months to March.
And many analysts are predicting the federal government's plan to reach 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030 will fall well short.
Are ambitious targets useful, even if they're not met?
"The evidence is that ambitious targets, by and large help spur greater action," Frank Jotzo, an expert in climate economics and policy at the ANU said.
"It is absolutely a positive thing for countries to set ambitious goals even if they aren't met in all circumstances."
Professor Jotzo said the countries failing to meet their targets were by and large the ones with the biggest ambitions, including Australia which had a target of 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030.
"Australia used to have a very weak at target and now [it's] a reasonably ambitious 2030 target," he said.
"When you look at the emissions projection that we're on, a 43 per cent reduction by 2030 will not be automatically reached — it will need a lot more action.
"On the other hand, a 43 per cent reduction by 2030 is a very far cry from what Australia would need to do in order to have a commensurate contribution to the global effort to keep temperature rise to well below 2C."