United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres attends the COP30 UN Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, on November 6, 2025. PABLO PORCIUNCULA / AFP
UN chief António Guterres said leaders must confront the "moral failure and deadly negligence" of missing the 1.5ºC global warming target and urgently correct course on Thursday, November 6, at the COP30 summit. Dozens of national leaders are in the Brazilian Amazon ahead of next week's UN climate talks that come after scientists confirmed the 1.5ºC safer limit of the Paris Agreement would be breached.
"We have failed to ensure we remain below 1.5 degrees," Guterres told the gathering of leaders in the rainforest city of Belém in northern Brazil. "This is moral failure – and deadly negligence," but that did not mean all hope was lost, he added.
On Thursday, the UN's weather and climate agency said that 2025 would be among the hottest years ever recorded. Major economies are not cutting planet-warming pollution fast enough to avoid dangerous levels of global warming this century, the UN said this week, but could still speed up action to protect against the worst impacts.
Subscribers only
