UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday accused oil and gas interests of blocking action on climate change and urged world leaders at COP31 to “end the fossil fuel addiction”. “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,” Guterres said in Turkey at his final UN climate summit as secretary-general.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres railed against the oil and gas lobby on Wednesday, urging world leaders to “end the fossil fuel addiction” at a climate summit missing several prominent figures.The two-week COP31 talks kicked off in Turkey earlier this week with governments under pressure to tackle climate change after a year of searing heatwaves and wildfires in Europe, and deadly floods in Nepal.
“The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us,” Guterres told dozens of world leaders assembled at a sprawling expo centre in the Mediterranean city of Antalya. But few major breakthroughs are anticipated at the COP31 negotiations, which run until November 20, as countries grapple with an oil price shock and geopolitical tensions fuelled by the US war with Iran and Russia’s conflict in Ukraine.
Since agreeing in 2023 for the first time to transition away from fossil fuels — the main driver of climate change — nations have struggled to advance that goal at the annual COP conferences.
