‘Climate crisis is outrunning us,’ UN chief Guterres says at COP31

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has sought world leaders’ immediate response to climate change, which has put the world on a path to destruction, at the 31st Climate Change Conference (COP31) in Antalya, Turkiye.

Accusing the fossil fuel lobby of “delaying” climate action, Guterres called on leaders on Wednesday to work to ensure that coal, gas and oil cease to exist as energy sources, saying it is needed to avert “disaster”.

“Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs, but that won’t happen on its own. The dinosaurs did not have a lobby, but fossil fuels do,” the UN chief said.

“The brutal truth is that ⁠the climate crisis is outrunning us. Emissions in 2025 reached all-time highs. Heat records keep shattering,” he said.

“The last four years were the hottest ever, and ‌fossil fuel interests keep making a killing while killing our planet. Climate disasters are pounding lives, livelihoods and economies across the globe. This is the path to mutually assured destruction,” Guterres cautioned.

Top leaders attending the summit include Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham is the only leader from a G7 country, scheduled to address the summit on Thursday.

European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen is also participating, while world leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian PM Mark Carney and Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi are skipping the summit.

The United States, the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, has skipped the talks for the second year in a row.

Push for electrification

COP31 host Turkiye is championing a voluntary initiative to accelerate the electrification of transport, buildings and industry, with a target of raising electricity’s share of global energy consumption to 35 percent by 2035.

The EU has stressed that electrification must be “clean”, which could lead to debate over the role of oil, gas and coal in the Turkish proposal.

The UN chief has urged countries to speed their transition to clean energy sources.

He said the world’s dependence on fossil fuels was also damaging economies, not just the climate – an apparent nod to surging petroleum prices since the start of the US-Israel war ‌on Iran that has disrupted Middle East oil exports.

Iran’s Pezeshkian said he would use the event as an opportunity to express Tehran’s position on environmental destruction in war.

“At this conference, we will speak about the actions of the United States and Israel in destroying the environment,” he said before departing for Turkiye, according to Iranian state television.

A UN report last month found the world on ‌course to break through the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7F) warming limit that countries had agreed to pursue under the Paris Agreement to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

Meanwhile, 2026 has also been marked by a series of extreme heatwaves across Western Europe and a glacier collapse in Nepal that triggered a catastrophic flash flood, killing more than 1,500 people, with thousands still missing.