Based on reporting by The Boston Globe and The Guardian

Wire reporting: (AP, via The Boston Globe)

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday at COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, that governments must cut greenhouse-gas emissions immediately and steeply, and that a temporary overshoot of the Paris Agreement's 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit is now inevitable^1,2.

It is Guterres's last U.N. climate summit; he leaves office at the end of December after two five-year terms². He told reporters that climate change is central to U.N. work because it drives hunger, displacement, debt and competition for land and water, and that no country can protect itself alone¹.

He said emissions need to fall about 6 percent a year for several years to keep any overshoot as small and short as possible, and he called current trajectories a path to severe harm¹. Climate Action Tracker, cited in the AP account, said progress in slowing warming has stalled for about five years and that even if countries meet existing pledges the world would be about 2.6C warmer by 2100¹.

COP31 is debating an electrification goal that would raise electricity's share of global energy use from about 21 percent to 35 percent by 2035 without requiring renewable generation; Guterres said clean power is essential, while IEA head Fatih Birol said a looser pledge would draw more signatories¹. Guterres also said wealthy countries must deliver promised climate finance and more, and that tripling adaptation finance would still cover less than 30 percent of need¹. The United States, the second-largest current emitter, is skipping the summit for a second year after withdrawing from climate talks¹.