Climate crisis puts world on path to destruction

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders at the COP31 summit in Türkiye on Wednesday that the slow international response to climate change so far had placed…

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders at the COP31 summit in Türkiye on Wednesday that the slow international response to climate change so far had placed the world on a path to destruction. Governments must fight harder to preserve the planet for future generations, he said, in comments that set the tone for two days of rapid-fire speeches by world leaders at the UN conference on Türkiye's Mediterranean coast. "The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us.

This is the path to mutually assured destruction," Guterres said, pointing to rising emissions, global temperatures and worsening climate-driven disasters. "But science is not telling us to surrender. It is telling us to fight harder." Negotiators from nearly 200 countries are seeking agreement on a plan to increase the share of electricity in global energy use and revive stalled efforts to move away from fossil fuels.

The summit opened on Monday against the backdrop of wars, rampant inflation and other crises that are competing for political attention – but also amid increasingly alarming signals about the pace of global warming. A UN report last month found the world on course to break through the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit that countries had agreed to pursue under the Paris Agreement to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

Meanwhile, 2026 has also stood out with a series of extreme heatwaves across Western Europe and a glacier collapse in Nepal that triggered a catastrophic flood killing more than 1,450 people, with thousands still missing. Former French prime minister Laurent Fabius, who presided over the 2015 Paris climate conference and leads an advisory council of former COP presidents, said on Tuesday the leaders' speeches should give political impetus to the negotiations.

"It is an opportunity for leaders to make some announcements, and more this time, to explain how they will implement, because the key word in Antalya is implementation," he told Reuters. Wednesday's speakers are expected to include Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was re-elected at the end of October and whose country hosted last year's climate talks. Vice President Han Zheng, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine will also speak.