Here in New York City, the United Nations General Assembly is in full swing and Climate Week is underway. Tomorrow, we’ll host Climate Forward Live, featuring interviews with political leaders, executives and activists, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright; the environmental activist Erin Brockovich; Tim Latimer, the chief executive of Fervo Energy; the actor and activist Jane Fonda; and Abigail Spanberger, the governor of Virginia. (Sign up for the livestream here.) And in today’s newsletter, we’ve got an interview with outgoing U.N. Secretary General António Guterres.
climate policy
‘Dramatically worse’: A grim assessment from a departing U.N. chief
From the moment he took over as United Nations Secretary General in 2017, António Guterres has been raising the alarm about climate change.
He called it the “defining issue of our time” and urged countries to embrace renewable energy and phase out the fossil fuels that are dangerously warming the planet. He has called for an end to subsidies for oil and gas, and bans on fossil fuel advertising.
Now, the 77-year-old Portuguese diplomat’s time as the head of the U.N. is coming to an end. A new secretary general will be chosen in the coming weeks. And while Guterres’s successor is not yet known, it will be difficult for whoever comes next to match his passion for the climate cause.
“No one has done more to rally the world to address climate change than António Guterres,” said Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire, climate donor and former mayor of New York City who has partnered with Guterres on the issue. “His work has been crucial to the significant progress we’ve made over the last decade.”
Just how much progress the world has made is a matter of debate.
Guterres took over the U.N. shortly after the 2015 Paris climate agreement, in which most nations on Earth pledged to try and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
Since then, countries have rolled out renewable energy and found ways to limit planet-warming emissions, and the worst-case projections about just how hot the planet will get have been revised downward.
But still, global emissions remain at record highs. Temperatures keep rising, with this year projected to be among the hottest ever. And the annual United Nations climate summit, known as COP, is under scrutiny for failing to deliver meaningful results.
“Things are getting dramatically worse,” Guterres said. “We will have an overshoot over 1.5 degrees in the next few years.”
Given that mixed progress report, I asked Guterres if he thought the Paris climate accord was successful.
“Just imagine if there was no Paris agreement,” he told me when we spoke by phone over the weekend. Guterres noted that “we are far from reaching the level of commitment that is necessary.” But, he said, “the Paris Agreement was successful — it mobilized the world for climate action.”
As for what he saw as the major impediments to further progress, Guterres homed in on the fossil fuel companies that have long been a target of his ire.
“It’s time for the fossil fuel companies to understand that if they double down on their strategy, they will become outdated,” he said. “It is obvious that today renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels in the overwhelming majority of circumstances.”
Guterres acknowledged that the boom in data centers, many of which are powered by natural gas, would make it that much harder for the world to blunt global warming. He called on data center builders to commit to powering their facilities with clean energy by 2030, and said that the rush to build new gas plants for artificial intelligence infrastructure “has no future.”
I asked Guterres what he had to say to the Trump administration, which has been throttling renewable energy in the United States while expanding fossil fuel production at home and abroad.
“I don’t give messages to anybody,” he replied. “I express my beliefs. And my belief is that a strategy that doubles down on fossil fuels is a strategy that has no future. And that it is very important for that strategy to be reversed.”
When President Trump addressed the United Nations last year, he called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and dismissed global efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.
Asked what he was hoping to achieve in his final months as secretary general, Guterres said the road map for change was clear.
“There are two things that need to be accelerated,” he said. “One thing is, of course, the need to speed the transition from fossil fuels to renewals in all aspects. And the second thing is to introduce elements of justice in climate policies.”
Specifically, he said, more funds needed to be made available for companies to adapt to hotter temperatures, rising seas and the growing threat of climate-fueled disasters, such as the glacier collapse in Nepal. And as for who will push the world for climate action after he leaves the post, Guterres said he still believed the United Nations could make a difference.
“I believe the U.N. must go on playing its role,” he said. “I am not convinced that my presence as secretary general is essential. What I’m convinced is that we need to have more and more global mobilization in defense of climate action and in defense of the planet.”
Artificial intelligence
The big threat has been climate change. Now comes A.I.
New warnings that humans are flirting with out-of-control artificial intelligence raise an uneasy question: has A.I. surpassed climate change as one of humanity’s gravest risks?
Though the danger of the technology is hard to assess, the worst-case scenario — human extinction — makes other earthly concerns seem small.
Yes, climate change is creating dangerously hot conditions, fueling superstorms and killing crops, and it may lead to planetary upheaval. But that only matters if our civilization is still recognizable.
All of this leaves climate activists competing for a finite pool of political consideration. As diplomats and world leaders gather at the United Nations this week to grapple with the planet’s most pressing problems, some worry that global warming could be overlooked even as it worsens. — Chico Harlan
Climate law
Federal judge rules that the E.P.A.’s cancellation of a Biden-era solar program was illegal
A federal judge has ruled against the Trump administration’s cancellation of a $7 billion program created under President Joseph R. Biden that was aimed at helping lower-income families install solar panels on their homes. The Environmental Protection Agency moved to end the program last year, spurring a lawsuit by solar companies, labor unions, nonprofits and homeowners.
Judge Mary S. McElroy of the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island ruled Friday that revoking the funding for the Solar for All Program without approval from Congress was illegal. The money had been awarded under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden’s signature climate law.
Patrick Crowley, president of the Rhode Island A.F.L-C.I.O., which is the lead plaintiff in the case, celebrated the decision. “We think this program will be a game changer for us in Rhode Island in helping us meet our climate goals while putting hundreds if not thousands of union members to work,” he said.
The E.P.A. said Monday that it was reviewing the decision and considering options for appeal.
Solar energy overtook coal in the U.S. electricity supply for the first time in May 2026, according to Ember, an energy research organization. Solar supplied 12.8 percent and coal 12.2 percent, Ember said. — Karen Zraick
More climate news from around the web:
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“China’s electric grid has a dirty secret: Despite leading the world in renewable energy expansion, it is also the largest emitter of the planet’s most potent greenhouse gas,” according to Inside Climate News.
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The Guardian investigates how scientists employed by a Saudi oil giant ended up working on one of the world’s most important climate reports.
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In an analysis on the emerging effects of El Niño, Carbon Brief writes that “sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific now equal the previous daily record set in 2015 and will likely keep rising in the days ahead.”
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