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

What the report says

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged governments to move faster on climate action at the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkiye, according to Al Jazeera. Speaking on Wednesday, he said the world is not keeping pace with the climate emergency and argued that fossil fuel interests are slowing the transition away from coal, oil and gas. He warned that emissions remain at record levels and that recent years have been the hottest on record.

Guterres framed the issue as a global emergency with economic as well as environmental consequences, saying climate-related disasters are damaging lives, livelihoods and national economies. His remarks came as world leaders gathered for the conference, including Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian and Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif. Some major leaders, including those from France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan, were not attending, and the United States was absent for a second straight year.

The summit is being hosted by Turkiye, which is promoting a voluntary electrification push for transport, buildings and industry. The European Union has said any electrification drive must rely on clean power, setting up a likely policy debate over the role of fossil fuels. The article also notes that a recent UN report said the world is on track to exceed the 1.5C warming limit set under the Paris Agreement, underscoring the urgency of the discussions.