UN chief calls for new 'Climate Justice Compact' to cope with climate change

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called for a new "Climate Justice Compact" built on shared responsibility, urging nations at COP31 to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and mobilize massive climate financing.

"We need a new Climate Justice Compact, based on shared responsibility, shared security and shared benefits," Guterres told the UN Climate Conference Leaders' Summit in Türkiye, stressing that all countries must fulfill their obligations under the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

The proposed framework rests on four pillars: speeding up a "just transition" away from fossil fuels, protecting vulnerable populations, ensuring adequate financing and choosing cooperation over geopolitical fragmentation.

Guterres warned that trade barriers, technology monopolies, and geopolitical rivalries slow down the energy transition, inflate costs and leave "billions behind."

"We do not need countries to agree on everything. But we do need them to cooperate on the things no country can solve alone," he said.

The UN chief called for a new generation of national adaptation plans supported by international funding. "Every person on Earth must be covered by an early warning system, and every community protected from floods, droughts and rising seas."

Managing temperature overshoot

Acknowledging that temporarily exceeding the 1.5C (2.7F) warming limit established under the Paris Agreement can no longer be avoided, Guterres urged decisive leadership to ensure the exceedance remains a "temporary breach, not a permanent sentence."

"Science tells us an overshoot above that level is now inevitable. But science is not telling us to surrender. It is telling us to fight harder," he said.

To meet the 1.5C threshold, Guterres noted that global renewable capacity must triple from 2025 levels by 2035, while unabated coal power must drop by at least 75%.

Clean energy momentum versus fossil fuel lobby

Highlighting clean energy growth over the past decade, Guterres pointed out that solar power expanded from generating 1% of global electricity to meeting nearly three-quarters of global electricity demand growth last year, while electric vehicle adoption jumped from one in 100 cars sold to nearly one in three this year.

Maintaining that "the case for fossil fuels is collapsing," he noted that roughly three-quarters of humanity lives in nations dependent on fossil fuel imports, leaving populations exposed to price shocks and cost-of-living crises.

"Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs," Guterres argued, accusing the fossil fuel lobby of working to "distort the science" while delaying policy, action, and accountability.

Emissions trajectory, climate financing

Guterres warned that global emissions must fall by approximately 6% annually, noting that existing national climate plans deliver at best one-third of required reductions and put the world on track for warming above 2.5C temperature increase above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

Guterres urged developed nations to deliver at least $300 billion annually by 2035 and proposed taxing windfall profits from major oil companies, the nine largest of which pocketed $95 billion last quarter, to support "vulnerable countries."

"Those who profit most from fossil fuels must help foot the bill for the damage they have caused," he said.

He pressed multilateral development banks to surpass their $120 billion annual Baku commitment by 2030. "Shareholders must empower them to lend more. Mobilize more private investment. Take more risk."

Guterres warned climate disasters are “pounding lives, livelihoods and economies” globally, calling current trajectory a “path to mutually assured destruction.”

"Either plan this just transition, or pay for it in chaos and lost livelihoods," Guterres warned.

Türkiye is hosting COP31, the UN Climate Change Conference, in the southern Turkish city of Antalya.

Guterres thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for "wonderful hospitality and the excellent organization" of the conference.