'London is cooking': UN chief issues warning as he urges countries to cut fossil fuels
He warned that climate chaos is “accelerating before our eyes” while the arrival of the El Nino warming weather phenomenon this summer risks “blowing the house down”
London is “cooking”, the United Nations chief has warned, as he argued that the world cannot double down on fossil fuels in the face of devastating climate change.
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UN secretary general Antonio Guterres referenced Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale Of Two Cities in a major address at London Climate Action Week as the capital swelters in a severe heatwave.
Speaking at the event on Tuesday, Mr Guterres said: “Crisis brings clarity and here in London – the city of Dickens – it is clear that our world is facing a ‘tale of two crises’.
“A climate crisis is pushing us deeper towards higher temperatures and closer to catastrophic tipping points and an energy crisis exposing the folly of a world hooked on hydrocarbons.
“On the surface, these crises may seem separate, but they share the same destructive origin: fossil fuels.”
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His address coincides with an unprecedented heatwave hitting the UK this week, which has sparked fears over the impact of extreme heat on health, schools, workplaces and transport.
Temperatures are expected to smash the June record set in 1976 by several degrees as human-driven climate change intensifies the impact of a “heat-dome” settling over western Europe.
“London isn’t just calling. It’s cooking,” the UN chief said.
He warned that climate chaos is “accelerating before our eyes” while the arrival of the El Nino warming weather phenomenon this summer risks “blowing the house down” as it compounds the escalating impacts.
But his speech also comes against a backdrop of the ongoing Middle East conflict, which continues to drive global market volatility as fossil fuel prices surge.
Mr Guterres said the twin crises “demand the same answer” – namely, a “fast, fair transition to clean energy and a surge in adaptation, resilience and climate justice for those already facing climate harm”.
During the address, the UN chief announced the launch of an AI environmental transparency initiative, calling on technology firms to share information on their carbon, water and land footprint, and to commit to powering data centres with renewable energy amid growing concerns over the sector’s impact.
He also called on governments to tackle planet-heating methane emissions, warning that voluntary actions are no longer enough to deliver reductions to the greenhouse gas that could act as an emergency brake on near-term warming.
While the 2015 UN Paris Agreement saw countries commit to pursue efforts to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst impacts, Mr Guterres noted that scientists now say average annual temperatures will exceed this key threshold.
“The task before us is to strictly limit the overshoot, shorten its duration, and bring temperatures down below 1.5C as fast as possible,” he said.
“Every fraction of a degree matters. Every moment counts. Because the higher and longer the overshoot, the greater the risk of crossing planetary tipping points that trigger irreversible change.”
Mr Guterres pointed to a briefing released by the UN Scientific Advisory Board on Tuesday that outlined what passing these critical limits would mean for different planetary systems.
This includes coral reefs being pushed towards collapse, accelerating loss of ice sheets that would lock in sea-level rise, shifting the Amazon rainforest towards savanna-like conditions and the weakening of major ocean circulation systems that regulate global weather and rainfall.
“The Earth’s tipping points are like objects in a car mirror. They are far closer than they appear,” he warned.
The UN chief said the conflict in the Middle East has “unleashed the mother of all energy shocks” that also comes as a debt, food and development shock for many poorer countries.
“These twin crises have once again exposed the limits of an outdated model of development – a model powered by fossil fuels, where a single conflict can upend global energy supply, and a single chokepoint can send prices soaring,” he said.
“The lesson is clear – this model has no future,” he added.
“We cannot double down on a system based on fossil fuels that is driving both the climate crisis and the energy crisis.”
But Mr Guterres also said there is a “clear way out” and a “clean way out” with the clean energy transition, touting renewables as the cheapest, fastest and most scalable source of new electricity in most of the world.
He went on to outline seven steps countries can take to make a clean break from fossil fuels, including immediate action to cut methane emissions.
Launching a global “call to action on methane,” Mr Guterres said “aggressive cuts could produce visible temperature relief within a generation” given the greenhouse gas is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide but breaks down in the atmosphere much faster.
On AI, he said it can accelerate climate solutions but the technology is also “hungry for land, water and power” while the data centres behind it are already consuming more electricity than most countries.
“I am calling on every major AI company to measure and publicly disclose the full environmental impact of its systems – carbon, water, and land footprints – and to commit to powering every data centre with renewable energy by 2030,” he said
Elsewhere, he called on countries to tax oil and gas companies’ windfall profits made off the back of the energy crisis, remove harmful subsidies, deliver climate finance to poorer countries to adapt to the changing conditions and protect scientific independence.