UN chief urges wealthy countries to beat fossil fuel ‘addiction’ amid expansions

The world’s wealthiest countries are “signing away our future” by leading a “flood” of expansion in fossil fuel activity that threatens worsening heatwaves and other climate impacts that imperil billions of people, the head of the United Nations has warned.

António Guterres, secretary general of the UN, on Thursday called on countries to “fight the disease” of the world’s “addiction” to coal, oil and gas, warning that tumbling heat records this week must spur rich nations to lead the way in phasing out fossil fuels.

“I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world’s wealthiest countries,” Guterres said in a speech in New York. “In signing such a surge of new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future. The leadership of those with the greatest capabilities and capacities is essential. Countries must phase out fossil fuels – fast and fairly.”

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The remarks come a day after the Guardian revealed how a surge in fresh oil and gas exploration in 2024 threatens to unleash nearly 12bn tonnes of planet-heating gases, around the annual emissions of China, over the lifetime of the new drilling projects. Wealthy countries, such as the US and the UK, with a low economic dependence on fossil fuels have led this charge, handing out a record 825 oil and gas licenses last year.

Guterres said the world’s wealthiest countries need to scrap fossil fuel subsidies, end new coal projects and support developing, vulnerable countries from climate impacts such as heatwaves, flooding and droughts. “Leaders across the board must wake up and step up,” the secretary general said.

The mounting toll of the climate crisis has been brought into focus this week, with the record for the highest daily average global temperature falling on Sunday, and then again on Monday . The world has experienced 13 consecutive months of record heat, with this year expected to beat the annual temperature record, set just in 2023.

Already this summer, severe heatwaves have swept the US, Europe and Japan, while at least 1,300 people died making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The UN on Thursday released a new report calling for countries to do more to protect people from extreme heat, pointing to data showing that about 489,000 people died each year from 2000 to 2019 from heat-related deaths, nearly half of them in Asia and a third occurring in Europe. New data from the International Labour Organization shows that more than 70% of the global workforce, approximately 2.4 billion people, are now at risk from extreme heat.

Guterres urged governments to increase access to low-carbon cooling, redesign cities to cope with extreme heat, protect vulnerable people – such as outdoor workers, pregnant women, children and elderly and disabled people – and build up early-warning systems to prepare for deadly heatwaves.

“Extreme heat amplifies inequality, inflames food insecurity and pushes people further into poverty,” he said. “If there is one thing that unites our divided world, it’s that we’re all increasingly feeling the heat. Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere.”

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Guterres added: “To tackle all these symptoms, we need to fight the disease. The disease is the madness of incinerating our only home. The disease is the addiction to fossil fuels. The disease is climate inaction.”

Wealthy countries have roundly defended their climate credentials, although there is a growing recognition that expanding oil and gas production is incompatible with a scenario in which the world manages to limit dangerous global heating.

Energy security, as well as the imperative to deal with the climate crisis, demands countries like the UK “get off fossil fuels”, Ed Miliband, the UK’s secretary of state for energy security and net zero, told the BBC on Thursday.

“You look around the world, this is the new logic that developing countries, developed countries are recognizing,” he said. “Unless we drive for clean energy we are exposed – we are going to end that exposure.”