Fossil fuels addiction opened 'gates to hell', Guterres tells climate summit

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has told world leaders humanity's addiction to fossil fuels had "opened the gates to hell" as he kicked off a climate meeting where leading polluters China and the United States were conspicuously absent.

Despite increasing extreme weather events and record-shattering global temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, and oil and gas companies reap handsome profits.

Guterres has thus billed the "Climate Ambition Summit" as a "no-nonsense" forum where leaders or cabinet ministers will announce specific actions that deliver on their commitments under the Paris Agreement.

In his opening speech, he evoked 2023's "horrendous heat" and "historic fires" but stressed: "The future is not fixed: It is for leaders like you to write."

The bar for the podium was set high, with the UN chief making clear that only leaders who had made concrete plans to achieve net-zero greenhouse emissions would be allowed to speak.

After receiving more than 100 applications to take part, the UN finally released a list on Tuesday night of 41 speakers which did not include China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan or India.

"There's no doubt that the absence of so many leaders from the world's biggest economies and emitters will clearly have an impact on the outcomes of the summit," Alden Meyer of climate think tank E3G said.

He blamed competing issues - from the Ukraine conflict to US-China tensions and rising economic uncertainty - but also the lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry.

Broken promises

The event is the biggest climate summit in New York since 2019.

Anger is building among climate activists, particularly younger people, who turned out in thousands last weekend for the "March to End Fossil Fuels" in New York.

Advanced economies vowed in 2009 to channel $100 billion annually to less developed countries by the year 2020 — a promise that was broken — even as much of the funding that was mobilised came in the form of loans.

Meanwhile, a "loss and damage" fund aimed at providing financial assistance to nations most vulnerable and impacted by the effects of the climate crisis has still not been operationalised.

There are some bright spots, including the announcement that Colombia and Panama are joining a grouping called the Powering Past Coal Alliance - particularly notable as Colombia is the world's sixth biggest coal exporter.