The world is facing a climate calamity that is being aggravated by the wholesale burning of tropical forests. A solution is desperately needed to avoid an irreversible catastrophe that will have repercussions in Asia and every other region. The United Nations must take action on this issue. At the country level, especially the biggest carbon emitters — China, the United States, India, Russia and Japan — must decarbonize their economies. The perpetrators of massive deforestation — Brazil, Indonesia, Russia — must change course.

Group of Seven leaders, who held their summit last month in Biarritz, France, while swathes of the Amazon rainforest were ablaze, failed to act on the fate of the world's forests that, as the U.N. puts it, have an "unparalleled capacity to absorb and store carbon."

As the architect of the Paris climate agreement and with its expertise on forestry, the U.N. should put these massive forest fires at the top of the agenda at the General Assembly and produce an actionable resolution.