Opening a climate summit that leaders from most industrialized nations chose to skip, António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, on Wednesday warned that the planet was on a “path to mutually assured destruction,” unable to wean itself from planet-warming fossil fuels and facing intensifying disasters.
“Fossil fuel interests keep making a killing while killing our planet,” Mr. Guterres told world leaders gathering for the summit, known as COP31.
Mr. Guterres, who is in the final weeks of his term after leading the United Nations for a decade, urged nations to “end the addiction” to fossil fuels. His remarks sharpened the tensions for an event that often struggles to directly address the burning of fossil fuels, which is the root cause of climate change.
He and others acknowledged the world has failed to meet the goal it established in the Paris Agreement in 2015 to limit rising global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. That’s the threshold beyond which scientists say the dangers of global warming — including worsening floods, fiercer wildfires, droughts and ecosystem collapse — grow considerably.
On Wednesday, leaders one by one insisted that despite rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, it was critical to get back on track. But many avoided the mentioning the cuts to coal, oil and gas that would be necessary to meet most climate goals.
“It is time to wake up,” said President Hilda Heine of the Marshall Islands, who described rising sea levels threatening her Pacific atoll nation.
“Our response to the threat of overshoot must be overwhelming, or the world that we know is over,” she said.
The two-day leaders’ summit is part of the broader U.N. climate conference, which began on Monday in Antalya on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. This year, 102 world leaders are attending, according to organizers, down from 156 three years ago.
At the same time, more than 92,000 people have registered to attend the summit, according to the U.N., making it the largest climate conference in history.
COP31 comes at a challenging time for climate efforts. Wars and tariffs have driven a wedge into international cooperation. The U.S. and Israeli fight against Iran, now in its ninth month, has disrupted the flow of oil from the Middle East and pushed up global fuel prices. Nations are building up solar and wind capacity as a hedge against shocks while also burning more coal to ensure a stable energy supply. And in part because of data centers to power artificial intelligence, nations need more energy than ever — whatever the source.
In the consensus-based U.N. climate talks, even a single nation can upend an agreement, one reason why it has been difficult for nations to implement an earlier pledge to move away from fossil fuels.
As if highlighting the fight to come, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, said that cutting emissions could happen through “available techniques,” and emphasized the importance of “maintaining energy security.”
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil said climate change had “disappeared” from the global stage over the past two years.
Without directly mentioning the United States or President Trump, who has imposed steep tariffs on Brazilian products, he said, “We started talking more about weapons and tariffs than the survival of future generations.”
The United States, the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, withdrew from the Paris climate agreement and is no longer working to reduce carbon emissions. Beyond President Trump, the list of leaders skipping the summit is long: President Xi Jinping of China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia. They represent the five nations that emit the most annual emissions.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham of Britain, who is scheduled to speak on Thursday, was expected to be the only leader of the Group of 7 wealthy nations to attend the climate summit.
“It really is a disgrace,” Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, a climate research group, said in a statement. “The world’s biggest economies should be leading the response to the climate crisis, not leaving it to others.”
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, attended the summit, as did Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, who called for the “free flow of green technology” — a reference to trade barriers amid China’s clean energy dominance.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey used his address to call for more humanitarian aid to Gaza. He referred to the war between Israel and Hamas militants that began in 2023 as “not only a genocide, but an ecocide.”
The war, Mr. Erdogan said, had uprooted olive trees, polluted the soil and water in the seaside territory and turned Gaza’s cities into “enormous piles of rubble.”
Israel strongly rejects any suggestion that it committed genocide. Mr. Erdogan has often harshly criticized Israel and its treatment of Palestinians, contributing to increasingly tense relations between Turkey and Israel.
Israel did not send anyone to the conference, according to a provisional list of delegates published by the U.N. climate body.
Several leaders on Wednesday detailed how climate change was upending their nations, with Iraq’s president, Nizar Amedi, saying that water scarcity was jeopardizing “societal stability” in a cradle of civilization. Ms. Heine, of the Marshall Islands, described seeing “bright and lush” coral reef on her home island in July; months later it had been bleached white.
“We are watching ecosystems die,” she said.
Andrea Woods, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute, the main oil and gas lobbying group in the United States, said the industry has significantly reduced emissions since 2015.
“Rather than restricting the infrastructure needed to meet growing energy demand, policymakers should be focused on practical solutions that build on this progress and strengthen global energy security,” she said.
In his speech, Mr. Guterres called out fossil fuel interests several times and drew applause when he said, “I will not stop telling the truth.”
Nations agreed three years ago to transition away from fossil fuels, starting with steps this decade. But some oil- and gas-exporting countries have since ramped up production. Carbon emissions continue to rise. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia have blocked recent U.N. conferences from revisiting the deal and fleshing out specifics.
“Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs,” Mr. Guterres said. “And that won’t happen on its own. The dinosaurs did not have a lobby, but fossil fuels do.”
Ben Hubbard contributed reporting.
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