Guterres says climate crisis is outrunning people at COP31
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on November 11 at the COP31 climate conference that the climate crisis is outrunning people. Al Jazeera reported that he said emissions reached all-time highs in 2025 and that the last four years were the hottest ever.
COP31 is the UN climate conference, being held in Antalya, Turkiye, from November 9 to 20, 2026. Turkey and Australia are hosting it jointly. At the summit, Guterres accused the fossil fuel lobby of delaying climate action. He said fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs, and he called on leaders to work to ensure that coal, gas and oil cease to exist as energy sources.
Several heads of state and government are attending. They include Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen is also taking part.
Among the G7 group of major industrialised nations, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham is the only leader scheduled to address COP31, which he is due to do on Thursday. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi are not attending. The United States has also skipped the talks for the second year in a row.
Turkiye, as host, is championing a voluntary initiative to raise electricity's share of global energy consumption to 35 percent by 2035. Under the initiative, countries would choose whether to take part.
