Fears mount that next UN chief will downgrade climate action

Original article by Fiona Harvey Environment editor

Fears are mounting that the next UN secretary general will downgrade the priority of the climate crisis, according to climate and civil society experts.

The current secretary general, António Guterres, has been the most forthright on the subject, calling fossil fuel companies “the godfathers of climate chaos” and warning governments they are rushing down a “highway to hell” by failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

His repeated championing of the urgency of the crisis and willingness to take on vested interests are credited with significant global impacts, forcing governments to confront their policy failures and keeping alive the aims of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, despite the rising tide of populism and disinformation.

Guterres must step down at the end of his second five-year term on 31 December and the choice of his successor will be one of the top concerns among the scores of heads of government meeting in New York this week for the UN general assembly.

Many of Guterres’s most likely successors have shown less enthusiasm for tackling the climate crisis, despite rising alarm at its impacts, and experts have told the Guardian that some of the candidates could be “disastrous” yet could enjoy the support of influential countries including the US and its allies.

Three candidates in particular have raised concerns: the Argentinian diplomat Rafael Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency; Macky Sall, the former president of Senegal; and Olara Otunnu, a Ugandan former presidential candidate who has served as UN undersecretary general for children and armed conflict.

Numerous insiders and experts told the Guardian that Grossi was “trying to be a friend of Donald Trump” and maintained close links with Argentina’s populist president, Javier Milei, a climate denier. “Grossi is not a climate denier himself, but those links could lead him to downplay climate,” said one close observer, who could not be named.

Sall is seen as a potential champion of gas in Africa as a “transitional fuel”, which many African leaders want to exploit. “I wonder how far he would be willing to push [climate action] when it conflicts with African [fossil fuel] energy interests,” said the observer.

Otunnu may feel national pressure on the politics of African gas and oil exploration, as Uganda has discovered large oil and gas deposits that it plans to exploit. “He’s a big question mark,” said another expert. “Given the fossil fuel politics of Uganda, would he make climate constraints politically binding when they conflict with development priorities?”

Andreas Sieber, the head of political strategy at the campaign group 350.org, said: “The gender gap is impossible to miss: all five women candidates range from credible to genuinely compelling, while the men could be auditioning for a job description from the past century.”

Some candidates have a stronger climate record. Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett of Guyana has pushed strongly for Indigenous rights and social development, particularly on fairer finance. Rebeca Grynspan, an economist from Costa Rica, has linked the climate crisis to debt in the developing world, arguing both crises need to be tackled together.

Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile, has said governments can no longer treat climate action as a choice but a necessity, but she was reported this week to have dropped out of the race. María Fernanda Espinosa, a former foreign minister of Ecuador, led the country’s negotiating team at several UN climate Cop summits.

Ivonne Baki, also known as Ivonne A-Baki, another Ecuadorian former minister, has pioneered several conservation schemes but expressed doubt over the efficacy of emissions reductions, to the consternation of climate campaigners.

A spokesperson for Baki told the Guardian: “Ambassador A-Baki’s commitment to climate action is longstanding and unequivocal. What she has questioned is not the need to reduce emissions, but whether climate policy will succeed if it becomes detached from economic realities, development needs and the livelihoods of the people it is intended to protect. Her position is that the world must pursue emissions reductions while dramatically strengthening adaptation, climate finance and protection of the natural systems on which human security depends.”

Carlos Lopes, a professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town, said: “There is a real risk that the next secretary general may be less forceful on climate than Guterres has been, not necessarily because of the individual ultimately selected, but because the political environment has changed considerably: climate diplomacy is facing stronger geopolitical headwinds, the multilateral system is under greater strain, and we are seeing forms of ‘climate hushing’, including among countries that only a few years ago wanted to be seen as leaders.”

He added: “A new secretary general may understandably want to establish a distinctive agenda, but climate cannot now be treated as one issue among many competing for attention.”

Continuing Guterres’s strong sense of mission on the climate must be the minimum for his successor, experts told the Guardian. “It’s absolutely critical that the climate remains at the heart of what the UN does,” said Cosima Cassel, the climate diplomacy programme lead at the E3G thinktank.

The new incumbent must take on fossil fuel interests emboldened by the Trump administration and with profits bolstered by soaring fuel prices. Against a rising tide of climate denialism and misinformation, the UN is also asking governments to regulate AI, a task begun under Guterres but which will fall mainly to the next head, and could be crucial in determining whether AI becomes a vast new source of emissions.

Focusing on methane – a greenhouse gas 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, which comes from leaky oil and gas operations, waste landfills and agriculture – should be a top priority, said Durwood Zaelke, the president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “Cutting methane is the single most important strategy to slow near-term warming,” he said. “If we want to stop the punishing heatwaves, we need to turn off the methane blowtorch.”

Countries have few constraints on the gas at present: even basic efforts such as plugging abandoned coalmines are still lacking.

Electrification, which will be under the spotlight at the Cop31 summit this November, should also be a key push, aided by concerns over oil dependence raised by the Iran war. And climate finance is still not flowing to poor countries: as the tragedy in Nepal demonstrated, countries stricken by climate disaster are not receiving “loss and damage” money promised for their rescue and rehabilitation.

The new UN chief must threaten and cajole rich countries into paying their share, even while the UN faces budget cuts of its own amid the withdrawal of US cash. Claudio Angelo, of the Observatório do Clima network in Brazil, said: “A secretary general can only be as good as the institution they head, and the UN is being hollowed out by the US.”

Many prominent figures in climate diplomacy see the UN as an essential linchpin in climate action. Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland, said: “We are watching the planet’s life support systems collapse around us. This could not be more urgent. The next secretary general doesn’t just need to match the ambitions of previous SGs, they have to make this one of their top priorities and be a beacon for leaders all over the world to phase out fossil fuels.”