Essay by Eric Worrall
Boutros Boutros got the UNFCCC, Kofi Annan the Kyoto Protocol, Ban Ki-Moon the Paris Agreement, but António Gutteres gets – nothing.
‘Fight for humanity’: Avoiding a climate catastrophe means acting now
Record heat waves, deadly flooding and extreme weather reflect an ever-warming planet poised to soon breach safe temperature limits, according to a UN report released on Tuesday, but doubling down on climate action now could avoid a climate catastrophe.
Key points
- Rapid, collective and global action is vital to cap the temperature rise at 1.5°C
- Climate action can reverse current trend by slashing methane pollution, protecting land, forest and oceans and accelerating the phaseout of fossil fuels
- Every fraction of a degree will cost lives, destroy livelihoods, deepen inequality and push ecosystems closer to irreversible damage
The scorching heat in the northern hemisphere in recent months, raging wildfires and deadly floods are a warning of what lies ahead, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.
He recalled that the historic 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change saw world leaders pledge to keep temperature rise to the 1.5°C limit above pre-industrial levels, which scientists say is critical to avoiding the worst climate devastation.
Indeed, the world is failing to keep that promise, according to the new report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
“The fight for 1.5 degrees is the fight for humanity,” he said. “We are set to breach the 1.5°C limit within the next few years.”
…
Read more: https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/09/1168240
The lack of UN progress on climate change is so desperate, Gutteres tried to diversify;
Antonio Guterres at AI Impact Summit: ‘Less hype, less fear’ – IPCC-style UN panel aims for ‘human control’ of AI
At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, UN chief Antonio Guterres emphasised the need for a balanced approach to AI, advocating for less hype and fear while promoting human oversight.
Written By Gulam Jeelani
Published 20 Feb 2026, 11:57 AM ISTIndia AI Impact Summit: UN chief Antonio Guterres on 20 February called for ‘less hype, less fear’ over Artificial Intelligence (AI) as he said that a new expert panel aimed to make human control ‘a technical reality’, news agency AFP reported.
Guterres said the United Nations General Assembly had confirmed the 40 members proposed for the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence.
“Science-led governance is not a brake on progress” but can make it “safer, fairer, and more widely shared”, he said at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.
‘Less hype, less fear. More facts and evidence’
“The message is simple: Less hype, less fear. More facts and evidence,” he said. The advisory body – aiming to be to AI what the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is to global warming – was created in August.
…
“We are barrelling into the unknown. Our goal is to make human control a technical reality — not a slogan,” he said.
…
Read more: https://www.livemint.com/technology/tech-news/antonio-guterres-at-ai-impact-summit-less-hype-less-fear-says-ipcc-style-un-panel-aims-for-human-control-of-ai-11771566064031.html
But with China and the USA going all in on the race for artificial super intelligence, nobody is going to put the brakes on AI development anytime soon.
Gutteres became UN Secretary General in December 2016 – just after President Trump won his first term. When Trump was defeated by President Biden in 2020, Gutteres must have known hope for a climate achievement of his very own.
But this was not to be. Biden’s unfocussed scattergun approach to advancing green causes failed to win traction with the global community. The one real chance Biden had of advancing environmental causes – silencing people who criticised him – collapsed in ridicule, after it emerged the person Biden chose to head his climate censorship push was a real oddball.
The Disinformation Governance Board, DisavowedHomeland Security pauses a speech board that sparked public mistrust.
By The Editorial Board May 18, 2022 at 6:36 pm ET
Quick as she came, the Mary Poppins of Disinformation unfurled her umbrella and floated away to her next job, nannying another nation of children who had the wrong ideas. Nina Jankowicz, age 33, was supposed to lead the Department of Homeland Security’s new Disinformation Governance Board.
Only three weeks after that announcement, media reports say the board is being “paused” and Ms. Jankowicz has resigned. It isn’t difficult to see why. “You can just call me the Mary Poppins of disinformation,” she tweeted last year, with a video of herself singing modified song lyrics to “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
…
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-disinformation-governance-board-disavowed-nina-jankowicz-homeland-security-mary-poppins-11652910532
Who can forget the video, of the woman chosen by Biden to silence climate skeptics singing her version of Mary Poppins?
Gutteres one big hope for a major climate treaty to his name, a global carbon tax on shipping, was derailed by President Trump threatening economic retaliation against anyone who tried to impose such taxes on the USA.
UN Secretary General António Gutteres only has until the end of December to make his mark. I can’t see him achieving anything significant in the time remaining to him – I mean, if he hasn’t achieved anything in the last decade, why would that change in the next few months? But expect a few months of increasingly shrill UN headlines.
Hang on, maybe I spoke too soon – Will COP 31 “President of Negotiations” Chris Bowen save the day with a world changing green diplomatic breakthrough?
Perhaps not.
What do you think UN Secretary General António Gutteres should do to make his mark?
