Interview with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Climate Change; U.N. Chief Says, The World Is Waking Up To The Climate Crisis
ZAKARIA: The world came out in force on Friday in climate strikes. The protesters young and old were angry and determined to up end the status quo. On Monday United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will convene world leaders, business leaders, civic leaders to press for urgent action on what the U.N. is calling the global climate emergency. Noticeably absent will be Donald Trump. Then on Tuesday the so-called high-level general debate begins where world leaders, including this time Donald Trump, will offer a piece of their minds. All of that action will happen in the General Assembly room where I sat down with the secretary-general. Before his appointment as secretary-general, Guterres served as prime minister of Portugal and went on to be the U.N.'s high commissioner for refugees.</s>ZAKARIA: Mr. Secretary-General, thank you so much for doing this.</s>ANTONIO GUTERRES, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: It's a great pleasure to be here.</s>ZAKARIA: People have been trying to get the world to take the climate crisis seriously for a while now. And honestly, it doesn't seem to really work. Why do you think you will success when others have failed?</s>GUTERRES: Because I think things are changing very quickly. Climate change was perceived as a problem for the end of the century. But tomorrow it is more of the realities proving that climate change is a problem today. And it's not only a question of glaciers melting or the bleaching of corals, it's becoming a serious problem with terrible storms being more intense, more frequent and with more devastating consequences. Not only in the global</s>ZAKARIA: You mentioned coal in Asia. And it seems to me that, in some ways, is the single biggest piece of this that doesn't seem to be going away. Countries like India, even China, which is making some strides on green technology, they still use an enormous amount of coal to power their -- you know, to produce electricity. And coal is very cheap and very dirty. Do you get a sense in your conversations with Asian leaders that there is any hope that this will change?</s>GUTTERES: Yes. We are discussing seriously that question and I hope this will a change. And the main reason why this will change is that renewables are becoming cheaper than coal. Coal is easier to do. You can have a turnkey power plant easily built, renewables, special solar, all those seem to require a little more planning, more capacity to build, et cetera, but it cheap to store.</s>ZAKARIA: Let's be honest. Until you can find a way to store it in the night, and when it's not --</s>GUTTERES: But, again, if you have a combination. I mean, my country, Portugal, has a high percentage of renewables, still with some fossil fuels, but, again, the combination makes that -- if you have an adequate distribution, you can leave with still a very meaningful increase of renewables mainly in Asia without undermining that capacity. And on the other hand, the storage capacity is also improving technologically very quickly. And we believe it will be a solution very soon.</s>ZAKARIA: I saw a poll recently of 28 countries. I think it was asking how many people believed in climate change. The United States had the largest number of people who did not believe in climate change. The Trump administration is moving in ways to undo some of the things that the United States has done, particularly on car efficiency standards. How much of a problem is it that the world's leading power has a government right now that is actively trying to reverse some of the issues that have been resolved?</s>GUTTERES: It is a problem. But governments have less and less influence in countries as a whole. What we see in the U.S., even if it's probably the country where you have a bigger number of people disbelieving, there is already a solid majority believing. And it is in the U.S. that we see a very interesting development in the business community. It is in the U.S. that we see states. They will be present in our summits. The cities, they will be present in our summit. The companies and the public opinion more and more putting pressure in relation to the needs for the U.S. also to give a positive contribution to climate action. So my belief is that all these things, of course, sometimes take time. The influence on public opinions in government takes time. But I'm optimistic about the future contribution of U.S. to climate action.</s>ZAKARIA: Mr. Secretary General, a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much.</s>GUTTERES: A pleasure. Thank you very much too.</s>ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, we teach our kids not to trust strangers. Don't talk to them. Don't take candy from them. But once we become grown-ups, are we too trusting of strangers? When we come back, I'll talk to Malcolm Gladwell, who has a great new book on the subject.