UN chief tells Turkey climate summit: 'This is the path to mutually assured destruction'

“The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us. This is the path to mutually assured destruction,” UN secretary general Antonio Guterres told world leaders at the Cop31 climate summit in Turkey on Wednesday.

The UN chief siad that the slow international response to the climate crisis had put the world on this path and that rapid action was needed to avert it.

His comments set the tone for two days of rapid-fire speeches by world leaders at the UN conference on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, Reuters reported.

Guterres pointed to rising carbon emissions, global temperatures and worsening climate-driven disasters in his speech.