United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders at the COP31 climate summit in Turkey that the climate crisis is outrunning the world.
Speaking on the Mediterranean coast at the opening of two days of national leaders' addresses, Guterres warned that a slow international response to global warming has put the planet on a path toward mutually assured destruction. He called on governments to fight harder to protect the Earth for future generations.
Guterres said the blunt truth is that the climate emergency is outpacing humanity, pointing to climbing greenhouse gas emissions, rising global temperatures, and increasingly severe weather catastrophes. However, he stressed that scientific warnings do not instruct humanity to surrender, but rather demand that nations redouble their efforts.
The United Nations conducts the annual climate conference, formally known as the Conference of the Parties, as the world's primary multilateral venue to coordinate international environmental commitments and assess compliance with international treaties. Guterres has used the platform throughout his tenure as secretary-general to press industrialized nations and major polluters for rapid decarbonisation.
Mounting Disasters and Missed Climate Targets
Negotiators from nearly 200 countries are working in Turkey to reach an agreement on a framework to expand electricity's share of global energy consumption and revive stalled international efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.
The summit opened on Monday against a difficult geopolitical backdrop, with active regional wars, runaway inflation, and economic turmoil competing for the attention of political leaders, even as scientific data indicates that global heating is accelerating.
A United Nations report released last month found that the world is currently on track to exceed the warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. That target was established under the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement to prevent the most dangerous consequences of global temperature rise, including the collapse of critical ecosystems and irreversible sea-level rise.
The physical impact of rising temperatures has been felt acutely throughout 2026. A succession of severe heatwaves swept across Western Europe during the summer, while a massive glacier collapse in Nepal caused catastrophic flash flooding that killed at least 1,450 people, with thousands of others still reported missing.
Diplomatic Push and Absent Superpowers
Laurent Fabius, the former prime minister of France who presided over the successful negotiations at the Paris climate conference in 2015, said on Tuesday that the high-level addresses must give diplomatic momentum to the talks. Fabius currently chairs an advisory council composed of former COP presidents.
Speaking to Reuters, Fabius said the Antalya summit offers leaders a vital platform to announce new initiatives and outline practical execution, noting that implementation is the key word for this year's discussions.
Speakers scheduled to address the conference include Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who won re-election in late October and whose country hosted the previous COP negotiations. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng, and Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine are also scheduled to deliver speeches.
Several of the world's wealthiest and most carbon-intensive economies are notably absent from the leaders' roster. The United States, the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, is missing the negotiations for a second consecutive year after President Donald Trump withdrew the country from international climate treaties following his return to office in 2025. Trump had previously described climate change as a hoax.
Other major industrialized nations, including France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada, decided against sending their top political leaders to the conference this year and will not take part in the leaders' addresses.
Mohamed Adow, director of the Nairobi-based energy and climate think tank Power Shift Africa, criticised the missing leaders, stating that the largest economies in the world have an obligation to lead the international response to the climate crisis rather than leaving the responsibility to others.
Turkey's Electrification Proposal
The host country, Turkey, is encouraging participating nations to place an ambitious electrification target at the heart of the final summit agreement, though environmental policy analysts argue the plan does not go far enough to curb global heating.
The Turkish initiative seeks to boost electricity's share in total global energy consumption to 35 percent by 2035, up from just over 20 percent at present. In theory, electrifying transport, industrial operations, and heating systems would decrease direct emissions from motor vehicles, manufacturing plants, and residential buildings.
However, critics have highlighted that the draft proposal contains no requirement to construct new clean power generation from renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Participating governments have also yet to resolve a comprehensive plan for phasing out fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas.
Energy experts emphasize that electrification only achieves deep decarbonisation if the underlying electrical grid is powered by non-fossil sources. Generating additional power through coal-fired or natural gas turbines continues to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, regardless of how cleanly end-user appliances run.
Call for Windfall Taxes on Oil Profits
Guterres urged delegations in Turkey to move far more rapidly in replacing fossil fuels with clean energy alternatives. He said that like dinosaurs, fossil fuel energy must go extinct, but warned that market forces alone would not bring about that change.
The UN chief blamed the fossil fuel lobby for obstructing reform, arguing that its playbook is simple: twist the science, delay meaningful action, and delay taking responsibility for the resulting environmental harm.
Guterres said that corporate entities profiting from fossil fuels must be made to help cover the costs of climate damage. He stated that the nine largest oil companies recorded combined profits of 95 billion dollars, equivalent to 85.3 billion euros, during the most recent financial quarter alone.
He urged national governments to levy taxes on those windfall earnings and allocate the funds to assist vulnerable developing nations facing escalating losses and economic damage from climate disasters.
The secretary-general also pointed out that dependence on oil and gas inflicts severe harm on domestic economies, noting how crude prices surged after the outbreak of war involving the United States and Israel against Iran, which disrupted vital Middle Eastern oil shipping routes.
Guterres warned that three-quarters of the global population reside in nations that import fossil fuels, leaving billions of people vulnerable to sudden commodity price shocks that they did not cause and cannot regulate. He concluded that recent geopolitical conflicts show that dependence on fossil fuels is a direct route to chronic economic insecurity and a collapse in living standards.
