United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has sought world leaders' immediate response to climate change at 31st Climate Change Conference COP31 in Antalya, Turkiye, warning world is on path to destruction.
Accusing fossil fuel lobby of delaying climate action, Guterres called on leaders Wednesday to ensure coal, gas and oil cease to exist as energy sources.
Fossil fuels must go the way of dinosaurs, but that won't happen on its own. The dinosaurs did not have a lobby, but fossil fuels do, UN chief said.
The brutal truth is that climate crisis is outrunning us. Emissions in 2025 reached all-time highs. Heat records keep shattering, he said. The last four years were hottest ever, and fossil fuel interests keep making a killing while killing our planet. Climate disasters are pounding lives, livelihoods and economies across globe. This is path to mutually assured destruction.
But science is not telling us to surrender. It is telling us to fight harder, he added.
Top leaders attending summit include Turkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was re-elected end October and hosted COP30 last year, Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham is only leader from G7 country scheduled to address summit Thursday.
The United States, world's largest historical emitter, has skipped talks for second year in a row after President Donald Trump withdrew from climate cooperation calling global warming a hoax.
COP31 opened Monday Nov 9 and runs until Nov 20. Nearly 200 countries negotiating. Host Turkiye championing voluntary initiative to accelerate electrification of transport, buildings and industry, target raising electricity share of global energy consumption to 35 percent by 2035.
Guterres, attending last COP before term ends December, urged tax on oil companies' windfall profits and confronting lobby's efforts to distort science, delay policy. He said global emissions need to decline by about six percent annually and urged developed countries to deliver at least $300bn annually in climate finance by 2035 ensuring wider $1.3tn ambition becomes real finance for developing countries.
UN report last month found world on course to break through 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit agreed under Paris Agreement.
2026 stood out with extreme heatwaves across Western Europe and glacier collapse in Nepal that triggered catastrophic flood killing more than 1,450 people, thousands still missing.
Analysis:
Guterres using last COP as Secretary General to drop diplomatic niceties. Outrunning us frames climate not as future threat but race already being lost, backed by 2025 emissions record. Dinosaur lobby line is sharpest attack yet on industry at COP itself, where fossil presence has grown each year. Calling for end of coal, gas and oil as energy sources goes beyond transition away language of Dubai. Timing is awkward, US absent, wars in Iran and Ukraine, inflation competing for attention, G7 largely skipping. Turkey's electrification push is modest and voluntary, no fossil phaseout deal expected. Real test is finance, $300bn ask is minimal compared to $1.3tn developing need. Without US money and with oil price shock, Guterres warning risks becoming epitaph.
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