TURKIYE: “Our first climate duty is to tell the truth. The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said while addressing the COP31 Leaders’ Summit here on Wednesday.
Stating that emissions in 2025 reached all-time highs, and heat records keep shattering, the UN Secretary-General warned the world leaders the “the last four years were the hottest ever and fossil fuel interests keep making a killing … while killing our planet.”
According to him climate disasters are pounding lives, livelihoods and economies across the globe. This is the path to mutually assured destruction.
He further stressed that but science is not telling us to surrender. “It’s telling us to fight harder. The truth is that we have the power to determine how high, how long and how devastating that overshoot will be,” Guterres said in his remarks.
Saying that we have the power to make sure the overshoot is a temporary breach, not a permanent sentence, the UN Secretary-General was of the view that but that demands leadership.
Recalling the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, he said temporarily exceeding the threshold was now inevitable but stressed that the scale and duration of the overshoot could still be controlled through stronger action.
Highlighting the rapid growth of renewable energy and electric vehicles, he said the transition to clean energy was accelerating, but global efforts remained far below what was needed. He called for annual global emissions reductions of around six per cent and an orderly, equitable transition away from fossil fuels.
Guterres identified climate justice as a defining challenge of the coming decade, urging developed countries to provide adequate and affordable finance to vulnerable nations for climate adaptation and addressing loss and damage.
He called for developed countries to deliver at least USD 300 billion annually by 2035, significantly increase adaptation finance and mobilise the USD 1.3 trillion climate finance goal. He also urged donors to replenish the Green Climate Fund and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage.
Stressing that polluters must pay, he pointed out that the nine largest oil companies had earned USD 95 billion in profits in the last quarter alone, while the Loss and Damage Fund had received only around USD 600 million.
He called on governments to tax windfall profits from fossil fuel companies to support climate-vulnerable countries.
He further urged governments to expand renewable energy, phase down unabated coal power, cut methane emissions, protect nature and strengthen early warning systems to safeguard communities from climate disasters.
Calling for greater international cooperation, Guterres said climate negotiations must translate into concrete action on the ground, warning that the world was running out of time to prevent more severe and irreversible climate impacts.
