‘The climate crisis is outrunning us,’ UN Secretary-General

• • UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres remarks to the COP31 leaders, Antalya, Turkey, 11 November 2026

Our first climate duty is to tell the truth. The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us. Emissions in 2025 reached all-time highs. Heat records keep shattering.

The last four years were the hottest ever. And fossil fuel interests keep making a killing … while killing our planet. Climate disasters are pounding lives, livelihoods and economies across the globe.

This is the path to mutually assured destruction.

Eleven years ago in Paris, the world pledged to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. Science tells us an overshoot above that level is now inevitable. But science is not telling us to surrender.  It’s telling us to fight harder.

The truth is that we have the power to determine how high, how long and how devastating that overshoot will be. We have the power to make sure the overshoot is a temporary breach, not a permanent sentence.

But that demands leadership. We know the truth. Now we must act on it. Because climate action is more than a fight over a number on a thermometer. We are in the fight for our lives and our children’s future.  I want to share three lessons from the past decade to guide the decade ahead.

Lesson One:

• Exponential change is possible.

Ten years ago, solar generated one per cent of the world’s electricity. Last year, solar power alone met nearly three-quarters of the growth in global electricity demand.

A decade ago, one in every hundred cars sold was electric.

This year, it is set to be nearly one in three.

Clean energy is now the cheapest source of new electricity across most of the world. And it is advancing – even where political headwinds are strongest.

That takes us to lesson number two:  

• The case for fossil fuels is collapsing.

Three-quarters of humanity live in countries that import fossil fuels. Hostage to price shocks they did not create and they cannot control.

Recent conflicts make clear that this is a recipe for chronic insecurity and a cost-of-living meltdown. It’s time to accelerate a science-aligned, just, orderly and equitable transition to renewables.

But let’s not underestimate the scale of the challenge.

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. And 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.

The third lesson is the hardest:

• The world is moving far too slowly.

Global emissions must fall around 6 percent every year.

Current national plans – including conditional ones – deliver at best one-third of that. And even if they are fully implemented, the world would be above 2.5 degrees by the end of this century, crossing dangerous and irreversible tipping points along the way.

We need an extraordinary acceleration. Our planet is heating up. The clock is winding down. It’s make-or-break time.

So, excellencies, we must move faster.

Climate justice is the defining challenge of the next decade. We cannot demand that countries transform their economies while denying them the means to do so.

Emerging and developing economies outside China are home to nearly two-thirds of humanity, yet they receive less than one-fifth of global clean-energy investment.

Most pay two to three times more to borrow. If they cannot access affordable clean energy, fossil fuels will fill the gap – locking in emissions for decades. And if vulnerable communities cannot adapt, instability will spread across borders.

We need a new Climate Justice Compact – based on shared responsibility, shared security and shared benefits.

The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities must apply – and all countries must do their part.

Developed countries cutting emissions faster – and delivering the finance and technology they promised.

Emerging economies accelerating their shift from fossil fuels to renewables. And developing countries receiving massive support to adapt.

The Climate Justice Compact rests on four pillars.

• First, speed a just transition away from fossil fuels.

Leaders – and in particular those from developed countries – cannot keep expanding fossil fuel production while claiming to be committed to 1.5 degrees.

The recent UNEP Emissions Gap report is clear:

By 2035, global renewable capacity must at least triple from 2025 levels, while unabated coal power must fall by at least 75 per cent.

By 2040, unabated coal power must be all but phased out – and oil and gas use cut by around a third.

Every government must align its policies, investments and infrastructure plans accordingly. That starts with credible national roadmaps to transition away from fossil fuels — protecting workers and communities affected.

That means no new coal.

No new oil and gas infrastructure that puts 1.5 degrees further out of reach.

• Slashing methane emissions.
• Expanding renewables, grids, storage and clean electrification at bullet speed.
• Safeguarding forests, oceans and biodiversity.
• We have a choice:  Either plan this just transition – or pay for it in chaos and lost livelihoods.

Second, protect people:

• As temperatures rise, adaptation is a matter of survival.

An overshoot above 1.5 degrees demands a transformational approach to adaptation – requiring a new generation of national adaptation plans with the international community supporting developing countries.

Every person on Earth must be covered by an early warning system – and every community protected from floods, droughts and rising seas.

When adaptation reaches its limits, support for loss and damage must be swift and accessible.

Third, finance must be adequate, affordable and readily available.

Developed countries must lead in delivering at least $300 billion a year by 2035 – and set out concrete plans with clear milestones to at least triple adaptation finance by then.

The $1.3 trillion goal must become real finance flowing to developing countries and this demands that every source of finance pull its weight.

• Multilateral development banks must go beyond their Baku commitment of $120 billion a year by 2030.
• Shareholders must empower them to lend more.
• Mobilise more private investment.
• Take more risk– and deploy more innovative instruments to better meet the needs and circumstances of vulnerable developing countries.
• Donors must ensure meaningful and ambitious replenishment of the Green Climate Fund and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage.
• Private investments also must back the transition in developing countries.
• South-South cooperation must increasingly help to expand access to technology and finance.
• And those who profit most from fossil fuels must help foot the bill for the damage they have caused.

In the last quarter alone, the nine largest oil companies pocketed $95 billion in profits.

Meanwhile, the loss and damage fund has received around $600 million. That is what these companies made in about 14 hours. It’s time for governments to tax these windfall profits – and use them to help vulnerable countries recover.

Polluters must pay:

• Fourth, we must choose cooperation over fragmentation

A world divided by trade barriers, technology monopolies and geopolitical rivalry means a transition that costs more, takes longer, and leaves billions behind.

We do not need countries to agree on everything. But we do need them to cooperate on the things no country can solve alone. And the climate process itself must evolve.

Negotiations matter – but success must be measured on the ground.

Implementation is essential

Across the United Nations, we are bringing countries and partners together on grids, critical minerals, methane and early warnings, and through our Climate Promise Forward.

This must become the model. History has handed us a remarkable opportunity to build economies that are cleaner.

Societies that are fairer. And a world that is safer. This is a climate agenda. An agenda for sustainable development, peace and security. And an agenda for human dignity.

I want to end with a message to all those on the front lines of climate action. Young people. Scientists. Indigenous Peoples. Civil society.

Small Island Developing States. You are the conscience of this struggle. And you have been standing up to some of the most powerful monied special interests in our world today.

Yet when others saw only obstacles, you saw possibilities. When others accepted delay, you demanded acceleration. When others looked away, you told the truth.

And dear friends, starting next year, I will no longer be Secretary-General. But you can count on this:

• I will not stop telling the truth.
• And I will not stop fighting for it.
• I will be standing side-by-side with you.
• As an advocate and an ally.

Together, let’s keep telling the truth about the climate crisis. Let’s keep demanding the action that truth requires. And let’s keep fighting for the sustainable future we know is in our hands.

I will be with you every step of the way.