Cop26: We are digging our own graves’ with climate change, says UN Sec Gen Guterres

The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said that Humans are “digging our own graves” through climate change and by “brutalising biodiversity”. He made the statement Monday in Glasgow at the opening of Cop26.

He criticised “a deficit of credibility and a surplus of confusion” over emissions reduction and net-zero targets, which held “different meanings and different metrics”.

Mr Guterres said that already the “sirens are sounding” and “our planet is telling us something”.

“Our addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink. We face a stark choice: either we stop it — or it stops us,” Mr Guterres said.

He urged the international community to give more aid — whether climate related or not — to the developing world.

But Mr Guterres praised the “unstoppable” and vocal, youth-led “climate action army” demanding action. “I assure you, they are not going away,” he said.

It’s time to say, ‘enough. Enough of brutalising biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper’. We are digging our own graves.”