The slow international response to climate change has placed the world on a path to destruction, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told heads of state and government during opening statements at this year’s COP31 climate conference.
“The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us,” he said, as world leaders gathered in the Turkish resort city of Antalya to set the tone for negotiations at the UN climate summit.
A UN reportlast month found the world will cross a temperature threshold countries agreed to pursue in order to prevent runaway global heating. At the same time, states like Germany are slipping down the rankings for climate action, according to the annual Climate Change Performance Index published Wednesday by New Climate Institute and Germanwatch.
Nonetheless, Guterres said the world has “the power to make sure the overshoot is a temporary breach.”
