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.
“Fossil fuel interests keep making a killing, while killing our planet,” Guterres said, urging governments to tax the windfall profits of oil companies.
“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,” he said.
“Their strategy is simple: Distort the science. Delay the policy. Delay the action. Delay the accountability. It’s time to kick the habit –- and end the fossil fuel addiction,” he said to applause.
Global fossil fuel emissions are projected to fall slightly in 2026 due to the expansion of renewable energy and the oil price shock sparked by the Iran war, researchers said Tuesday.
Guterres, who has made the fight against climate change a central issue since taking office in 2017, is attending his last COP before his term ends in December.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian are among the leaders due to speak during the “high-level segment” taking place on Wednesday and Thursday.
But some big names are missing, with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham the only leader from a G7 country scheduled to address the summit.
While European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen is coming to Antalya, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are skipping the event.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi are also absent from the most recent list.
Low Expectations
“It is a shame that some of the bigger European leaders aren’t coming. We need Europe to be showing up strongly at this COP,” Cosima Cassel, a climate diplomacy expert at think-tank E3G, told AFP.
Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s top climate official, said the absences were “not completely atypical” as leaders may have “practical” reasons for not being able to attend a summit.
But he also told reporters in Brussels that “expectations are not necessarily high” for this climate conference.
COP31 host Turkey 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 spark debate over the role of oil, gas and coal in the Turkish proposal.
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 Turkey, according to Iranian state television.
The French government said Macron would be absent because November 11 is World War I Armistice Day and the president will attend an EU summit in Ireland on Thursday.
‘We Have Lula’
Unsurprisingly, US President Donald Trump, who pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement and has not sent officials to climate talks since his re-election in 2024, is not attending the summit.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who rarely attends COPs, will be represented by Vice President Han Zheng.
The United States and China are the world’s top economies and biggest emitters of planet-heating emissions, making their presence at climate talks crucial to the process.
“But we have Lula,” Cassel said.
Climate campaigners breathed a huge sigh of relief when Lula, who has championed cutting deforestation rates, defeated right-wing rival Flavio Bolsonaro in last month’s Brazilian presidential election.
AFP
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