UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday the world is racing toward a climate change disaster, and dismissed the global response as woefully inadequate.

He said current climate policies will lead to average temperatures 2.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times by the end of the century, nearly twice the UN goal of a 1.5 degree rise.

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"That spells catastrophe. Yet the collective response remains pitiful," Guterres told a news conference.