Antonio Guterres said “polluters must pay” for the escalating damage caused by heatwaves, floods, droughts and other climate impacts, and demanded that “it’s time to put fossil fuel producers, investors and those in charge on notice” . “Today, I call on all developed economies to tax the windfall profits of fossil fuel companies,” Guterres said in a speech to the UN general assembly on Tuesday. “These funds should be redirected in two ways – to countries suffering loss and damage caused by the climate crisis and to people struggling with rising food and energy prices.” Guterres’ appeal came in his most urgent and grim speech yet on the state of the planet and the will of governments to change course. His first words were: “Our world is in great trouble.” “Let us have no illusions. We are in rough seas. A winter of global discontent is on the horizon, a cost-of-living crisis is raging, trust is crumbling, inequalities are exploding and our planet is burning,” he told the assembly. “We have a duty to act and yet we are mired in colossal global dysfunction. The international community is not ready or willing to face the great dramatic challenges of our time.” The divisive speech, delivered at UN headquarters in New York, echoed calls from activists and the European Union to tax major oil and gas companies currently enjoying record profits in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In July, Exxon announced that it had posted a record quarterly profit of $17.8 billion, while Chevron revealed its own record three-month profit of $11.6 billion. BP, meanwhile, made a profit of $8.5 billion over the same period. Under Guterres’ proposal, tax revenue would flow to mainly developing countries suffering “loss and damage” from global warming to invest in early warning systems, disaster relief and other resilience-building initiatives. Vulnerable countries are poised to use UN general assembly week to call on wealthy nations for a “climate-related and equity-based” global tax to pay for loss and damage. Guterres has previously accused governments of being “addicted” to fossil fuels and has called new investments in oil, coal and natural gas “moral and economic madness”. But his speech on Tuesday was particularly poignant, delivered at the general assembly’s big event and following the secretary-general’s recent visit to Pakistan, where floods from what he called “a monsoon on steroids” have submerged a third of the country and displaced millions of people. “Our planet is burning,” Guterres said, calling on world leaders to end the “suicidal war on nature.” “The climate crisis is the defining issue of our time,” he added. “It should be the first priority of every government and multilateral organization. And yet climate action is taking a backseat – despite overwhelming public support around the world.” “We have a rendezvous with climate disaster… Today’s hottest summers may be tomorrow’s coolest summers. Once-in-a-lifetime climate shocks may soon become once-in-a-year events. And with every climate disaster, we know that women and girls are hit hardest. The climate crisis is a case study in moral and economic injustice.” Governments must stage an “intervention” to break their addiction to fossil fuels, Guterres said, targeting not just the mining companies themselves but the entire business infrastructure that supports them. “This includes the banks, private equity funds, asset managers and other financial institutions that continue to invest in and underwrite carbon pollution,” the secretary-general said. “And it includes the massive PR machine raising billions to protect the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny. Just as they did for the tobacco industry decades ago, lobbyists and spin doctors have spewed harmful misinformation. Fossil fuel interests should spend less time averting a PR disaster—and more time averting a planetary one. Guterres said it was “time to move beyond endless talk” and provide funding for vulnerable countries and rich nations to double adaptation funding by 2025, as they promised to do at UN climate talks in Scotland last year. A further round of talks, known as Cop27, will be held in Egypt in November, in which casualties and damage are expected to be a central issue. Although governments have agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, almost every country is lagging behind in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to avoid this level of warming and thus avoid the catastrophic climate impacts. Emissions have already recovered to pre-pandemic levels, and an analysis this week showed there are plenty of known fossil fuel reserves in the world still burning – enough to release 3.5 tonnes of greenhouse gases, which would crush the carbon budget before reaching 1.5 C seven times over.
