ANTALYA: United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres held a press conference at COP31 on Friday, addressing journalists in Press Conference Room Mevlana in the Blue Zone of the Antalya Expo Center. The hour-long press conference, held from 17:00 to 18:00 on the COP31 Finance and Trade Day, closed the Secretary-General’s final day at the conference before his departure from Antalya. Muhammad Adnan, Chairman and Founder of the Global Climate Change Torch (GCCT), attended the press conference in person as media and was present in the room alongside the Secretary-General, covering it for Watan News International.
The press conference came at the end of a day dedicated to finance and trade, as ministers held the seventh biennial high-level ministerial dialogue on climate finance and the COP31 Presidency’s Climate Implementation Bridge was launched. It was the Secretary-General’s final press conference at a COP in his current role: his second and final term ends in December 2026, and COP31 is his last climate summit as Secretary-General.
A final COP as Secretary-General
Addressing the COP31 Leaders’ Summit on 11 November, Guterres told world leaders: “Starting next year, I will no longer be Secretary-General.” He has led the United Nations through ten years in which climate action became the defining test of international cooperation, and he used his final summit to press governments to turn promises into delivery. He departs Antalya on Friday, as the first week of COP31 gives way to the negotiations of the second week.
The messages he brought to Antalya
At the Leaders’ Summit, the Secretary-General proposed a new Climate Justice Compact, built on four priorities: a faster and fairer transition away from fossil fuels, stronger protection for vulnerable people, affordable climate finance, and deeper international cooperation. He called on developed countries to deliver at least $300 billion a year in climate finance by 2035, to set out concrete plans to at least triple adaptation finance by then, and to turn the $1.3 trillion goal into real finance flowing to developing countries.
His warning was blunt. “The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us,” he told leaders, noting that emissions in 2025 reached all-time highs. “Our planet is heating up. The clock is winding down. It’s make or bake time.” He said global emissions must fall by around 6 per cent every year, while current national plans deliver at best one-third of that, and even if fully implemented would leave the world above 2.5 degrees of warming by the end of the century.
On fossil fuels he was equally direct. “Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs,” he said. “The dinosaurs did not have a lobby. Fossil fuels do.” He contrasted the $95 billion earned by the world’s nine largest oil companies in a single quarter with the roughly $600 million received by the international fund helping vulnerable countries recover from climate-related loss and damage. “Polluters must pay,” he said, a line that earned him an ovation in the plenary.
Speaking to Reuters earlier in the week, he added an economic argument against oil dependence: “Fossil fuels are not only driving the climate crisis. Dependence on them carries a steep economic and security price.” He noted that three-quarters of humanity live in countries that import fossil fuels, hostage to price shocks they did not create and cannot control.
A farewell to civil society
Earlier on Friday, Guterres addressed civil society representatives gathered in the plenary room, who had come to mark his final COP as Secretary-General. “You pushed me to go further, to do more, and I am grateful for that,” he told them. “When I leave, I will keep standing with you as an advocate and ally. And I can assure that I will never, ever give up.” He told the room that the duty of the Secretary-General is to tell the truth, to fight for justice, and to be at the service of those who suffer and face injustice.
Finance and Trade Day
The press conference closed the COP31 Finance and Trade Day, dedicated to green transformation, climate-based investment, green finance, value chains and carbon markets. Earlier on Friday, the COP31 Presidency launched the Climate Implementation Bridge, with Pakistan among its first pilot countries, and the COP31 Business Forum held two panel discussions on artificial intelligence and the green transformation, which Watan News covered in a separate report.
GCCT president present
Muhammad Adnan, Chairman and Founder of the Global Climate Change Torch (GCCT) and Climate News Editor at Watan News International, attended the press conference in person as media. GCCT is presenting its artificial intelligence project for climate action at COP31, and Adnan is leading the GCCT delegation at COP31.
