António Guterres

‘Fight Harder,’ U.N. Chief Implores, Rousing Global Climate Ambassadors Listen · 6:12 min 11NOV2026 By Chico Harlan and Lisa Friedman NYT Gift Article link nytimes.com/2026/11/11/clima… Reporting from Antalya, Turkey The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, spoke at COP31, a meeting aimed at reducing emissions, amid a sharp drop in attendance by world leaders. Opening a climate summit that leaders from most industrialized nations chose to skip, António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, on Wednesday warned that the planet was on a “path to mutually assured destruction,” unable to wean itself from planet-warming fossil fuels and facing intensifying disasters. “Fossil fuel interests keep making a killing while killing our planet,” Mr. Guterres told world leaders gathering for the summit, known as COP31. Mr. Guterres, who is in the final weeks of his term after leading the United Nations for a decade, urged nations to “end the addiction” to fossil fuels. His remarks sharpened the tensions for an event that often struggles to directly address the burning of fossil fuels, which is the root cause of climate change. He and others acknowledged the world has failed to meet the goal it established in the Paris agreement in 2015 to limit rising global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. That’s the threshold beyond which scientists say the dangers of global warming — including worsening floods, fiercer wildfires, droughts and ecosystem collapse — grow considerably. On Wednesday, leaders one by one insisted that despite rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, it was possible, and critical, to get back on track. nytimes.com/2026/09/02/clima… “Science is not telling us to surrender,” Mr. Guterres said. “It is telling us to fight harder.” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, the host of the conference, warned, “With every minute that we fail to achieve the targets set out in the Paris agreement, the risks and costs we face continue to grow.” He blamed a “greedy mind set” of overconsumption for the failure. Turkey is one of several countries, including the United States, whose climate goals have been deemed “critically insufficient” by independent analysts to keeping temperatures at safe levels. climateactiontracker.org/cou… The two-day leaders’ summit is part of the broader U.N. climate conference, which began on Monday in Antalya on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. This year, 91 world leaders are attending, according to advance figures, down from 156 three years ago. At the same time, more than 92,000 people have registered to attend the summit, according to the U.N., making it the largest climate conference in history. COP31 comes at a challenging time for climate efforts. Wars and tariffs have driven a wedge into international cooperation. The U.S. and Israeli fight against Iran, now in its ninth month, has disrupted the flow of oil from the Middle East and pushed up global fuel prices. Nations are building up solar and wind capacity as a hedge against shocks while also burning more coal to ensure a stable energy supply. And in part because of data centers to power artificial intelligence, nations need more energy than ever — whatever the source. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil said climate change had “disappeared” from the global stage over the past two years. Without directly mentioning the United States or President Trump, who has imposed steep tariffs on Brazilian products, he said, “We started talking more about weapons and tariffs than the survival of future generations.” nytimes.com/2026/07/15/busin… The United States, the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, withdrew from the Paris climate agreement and is skipping COP31. Prime Minister Andy Burnham of Britain, who is scheduled to speak on Thursday, was expected to be the only leader of the Group of 7 wealthy nations to attend the climate summit. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, whose country was host to the landmark Paris agreement, will be absent because Wednesday is Armistice Day, and is then traveling to Ireland for a European meeting, government officials said. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy and Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada are also skipping the event. “It really is a disgrace,” Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, a climate research group, said in a statement. “The world’s biggest economies should be leading the response to the climate crisis, not leaving it to others.” Mr. Erdogan also used his address to call for more humanitarian aid to Gaza. He referred to the war between Israel and Hamas militants that began in 2023 as “not only a genocide, but an ecocide.” The war, Mr. Erdogan said, had uprooted olive trees, polluted the soil and water in the seaside territory and turned Gaza’s cities into “enormous piles of rubble.” Israel strongly rejects any suggestion that it committed genocide. Mr. Erdogan has often harshly criticized Israel and its treatment of Palestinians, contributing to increasingly tense relations between Turkey and Israel. nytimes.com/2026/08/29/world… In his speech, Mr. Guterres called out fossil fuel interests several times and drew applause when he said, “I will not stop telling the truth.” Nations agreed three years ago to transition away from fossil fuels, starting with steps this decade. But some oil- and gas-exporting countries have since ramped up production. Carbon emissions continue to rise. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia have blocked recent U.N. conferences from revisiting the deal and fleshing out specifics. “Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs,” Mr. Guterres said. “And that won’t happen on its own. The dinosaurs did not have a lobby, but fossil fuels do.” Ben Hubbard contributed reporting. Chico Harlan is a global climate correspondent for The Times. Lisa Friedman is a business correspondent covering energy for The New York Times. See more on: Antonio Guterres, nytimes.com/topic/antonio-gu… United Nations nytimes.com/topic/organizati… ‘Fight Harder,’ U.N. Chief Implores, Rousing Global Climate Ambassadors Listen · 6:12 min 11NOV2026 By Chico Harlan and Lisa Friedman NYT Gift Article link nytimes.com/2026/11/11/clima… Reporting from Antalya, Turkey The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, spoke at COP31, a meeting aimed at reducing emissions, amid a sharp drop in attendance by world leaders. “Fossil fuel interests keep making a killing while killing our planet,” António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, said at COP31 on Wednesday. Credit...Khalil Hamra/Associated Press