At his last United Nations Climate Change Conference as secretary-general, António Guterres on Wednesday emphasized that he “will not stop telling the truth” about how the fossil fuel industry and the wealthy governments that continue to hand out oil and gas subsidies are allowing the sector to reap massive profits while people around the world suffer from the worsening impacts of the climate emergency.
“The last four years were the hottest ever, and fossil fuel interests keep making a killing while killing our planet," the secretary-general said bluntly.
“Climate disasters are pounding lives, livelihoods, and economies across the globe,” he added. “This is the path to mutually assured destruction.”
Guterres spoke two days after the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released its “State of the Climate” report at the conference, known as COP31, which is being hosted by the Turkish government in Antalya this year. The report warned that while the past 12 years have been the Earth’s warmest on record, the trend has particularly accelerated since 2022.
The impacts have been brutal, with more than 1,500 people killed this year in Nepal and Tibet after a glacier collapsed and caused sudden catastrophic flooding, an estimated 200,000 people killed across Europe by extreme heat over the past years, and tens of thousands of acres scorched by wildfires across Europe and in the COP31 host country this summer.
Last month, the UN released a report finding that avoiding a global temperature rise over 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures is no longer possible. Experts now say governments must work toward a goal of ensuring that the overshoot is only temporary, just over a decade after the warming limit was agreed to in the Paris Agreement at COP21.
On Wednesday, Guterres emphasized that the failure to avoid passing the 1.5°C limit comes as planet-warming emissions from the oil, gas, and coal industries have continued climbing—and as already wealthy companies’ profits have soared.
Meanwhile, those same companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying in an effort to delay a transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources.
“The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us," said Guterres Wednesday. “Emissions in 2025 reached all-time highs. Heat records keep shattering.”
“Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs," he added. "And that won’t happen on its own. The dinosaurs did not have a lobby. Fossil fuels do. And their strategy is simple: Distort the science. Delay policy. Delay action. Delay accountability.”
Guterres called on governments to tax oil and gas companies’ windfall profits, like those the industry has reported since US President Donald Trump joined Israel in launching an illegal war in Iran. Since the conflict began in February, global energy prices have soared.
Last month, ExxonMobil reported $17.5 billion in adjusted earnings for the third quarter of 2026, while Chevron reported $10.4 billion. British company Shell earned $10.8 billion from July-September, and the French firm TotalEnergies brought in $9.1 billion.
The companies have reaped profits while the global Loss and Damage Fund, which experts and developing countries say needs about $400 billion annually from wealthier governments in order to help poorer countries adapt to emergency and repair damages, is woefully underfunded.
“Those who profit most from fossil fuels must help foot the bill for the damage they have caused," said Guterres. "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.”
David Tong, industry campaign manager for the global group Oil Change International (OCI), said in a statement that “trusting big oil to solve the climate crisis is like trusting big tobacco to cure lung cancer.”
“Fossil fuel companies actively undermine a renewable energy future while trying to wring as much profits as possible out of fossil fuels while cashing in on conflict,” said Tong. "It’s time to tax fossil fuel companies’ superprofits to pay for a transition to publicly owned renewable energy, governments must cut ties with fossil fuel companies and limit their influence on politics, and we must hold polluters accountable—legally and otherwise—for the damages they cause.”
OCI noted that Guterres’ speech came shortly after YouGov released new polling that showed significant support in countries with large fossil fuel industries—the US, the UK, and France—for laws to phase out oil, gas, and coal production.
The climate action group 350.org said world leaders at COP31 must “turn growing international support for moving away from fossil fuels into a clear commitment at COP31.”
Türkiye and Australia, which is serving as co-president of COP31, “will be to blame if this opportunity is allowed to slip away,” said 350.org.
On Tuesday, said the group, attendees took part in “high-level events on roadmaps for transitioning away from fossil fuels,” which “saw strong support from countries across negotiating blocs, alongside UN Secretary-General António Guterres, former COP presidents and ministers, for continuing the initiative launched by Brazil’s COP30 Presidency in Belém last year.”
“While Türkiye indicated it was open to considering the initiative, Australia offered no clear pathway for taking it forward,” the organization continued.
Fenton Lutunatabua, Pacific and Caribbean program manager at 350.org, said that “the political mandate for a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels is there.”
“The world cannot afford another COP where governments acknowledge the need to move beyond fossil fuels but fail to agree on how to make it happen,” said Lutunatabua. “If Australia is unwilling to advance this agenda, Türkiye must lead rather than allow one of the world’s most fossil-fuel-dependent governments to hold back progress. The political support is there. What is missing is the leadership to turn it into action.”
This year’s UN conference marks the second consecutive year without an official delegation from the US, the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, as Trump has refused to participate.
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 also skipping the summit, leaving UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham the only G7 leader attending.
“It really is a disgrace,” Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, told The New York Times of the absences. “The world’s biggest economies should be leading the response to the climate crisis, not leaving it to others.”
But Guterres stressed that despite the absence of leadership from the world’s wealthiest economies, "science is not telling us to surrender. It is telling us to fight harder.”
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