The world will need an enormous push from the private sector and civil society – including religious organizations – if humanity is to make the transition to a low carbon future and prevent the catastrophic effects of global warming, said a top UN official.

Speaking on 20 September 2013 at a breakfast dialogue in the offices of the Baha'i International Community, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said there is still time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet an international target of not allowing global average temperatures to rise more than 2 degrees centigrade.

“Many reports say that we actually no longer have the possibility of being able to decrease emission to the point where we might enjoy a planet of 2 degrees temperature rise – that we are heading towards a planet with a 3 or 4 or 6 degree temperature rise,” she said.

“All of those reports are correct, but they all agree that, in fact, we still have a window of opportunity in which we could, if all efforts are really brought to their maximum, that we could stay within the two degree limit,” she said, noting that the two degree limit has already been agreed to by the 195 nations that are party to the Climate Change Convention.

“But the longer we delay, the more costly the two degree limit will be. Because the more we invest in high carbon technology, the more we are locking ourselves into technologies that will made adaptation and resilience and the transformation more and more costly,” said Ms. Figueres.

If the two degree limit is not met, she said, there will be catastrophic effects, touching a wide range of global concerns.

“This is a challenge that has economic consequences, poverty consequences, security consequences, transportation consequences – you name it – the list is long. There is hardly a human endeavor that is not touched by climate change,” she said.

In that light, she said, the issue of climate change cannot be separated from the current discussions at the United Nations on the post-2015 development agenda, which seeks to develop new development and sustainability goals to replace the highly regarded Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which expire in 2015.

“You cannot continue to push forward with development without addressing climate change because climate [change] does have the capacity to wipe out everything that we have been able to achieve in development in the past 20 years,” she said.

And if we address climate change adequately, she said, we will contribute to solving many of the issues being discussed as part of the Post-2015 agenda, whether over energy, poverty, health, security, or biodiversity, among other issues.

“Real people do not experience climate change as two separate processes,” she said, referring to the twin tracks at the UN on climate negotiations and Post-2015 discussions. “This is only an artificial construct that we have created in order to deal with these issues from almost from a theoretical point of view. But the fact is no human being experiences any of the thematic areas or climate separately because this is all part of their lives.”

In the task of encouraging support for green technologies and lifestyle changes that will be necessary to meet such a goal, she said, religious organizations have a key role to play, because of the moral dimensions of the climate issue.

“Moral leadership is truly a scarce resource these days,” said Ms. Figueres. “But there is a moral necessity to stand up…and assume responsibility. And I would hope that the faith-based community would be even more active than it is right now in calling for that moral leadership.”

In an interview, Ms. Figueres expanded on this point, saying that the main moral dilemma in the climate issue is the discrepancy between those who caused the emissions that are responsible for climate change and those who will feel the main impact of its effects.

“It is no secret that those at the bottom of the pyramid, independently of what country they live in, are the least responsible for having caused greenhouse gas emissions in the past,” she said. “And yet those at the bottom of the pyramid are the ones that are already getting it the worst, and certainly will continue to be hit the worst.”

“So that is a moral imperative,” said Ms. Figueres. “We cannot look ourselves in the mirror and the untouched by the fact that those of us who enjoy the privileges of modern comfort are doing so at the expense of the quality of life of those at the bottom of the pyramid.”

The breakfast dialogue meeting at which Ms. Figueres spoke was the 13^th in a series of such dialogues on the post-2015 development agenda that have been sponsored over the last year by the Baha'i International Community and International Movement ATD Fourth World.

These dialogues, which have been held at the New York offices of the BIC, aim to bring together members of the UN community, whether diplomats, agency officials or representatives of non-governmental organizations, in an informal atmosphere to discuss various topics related to the post-2015 agenda, such as poverty, inequality, and the environment.