António Guterres (UN Secretary-General) - Security Council Media Stakeout

Dear members of the media, as you know, I have just returned from visits to Syria, Jordan and Cyprus. In Syria, I saw a country beginning to emerge from years of devastation. The international community must match that hope with action. Including the full lifting of sanctions and sustained support for recovery. My visit to Cyprus showed that in a rapidly changing and increasingly volatile region, the search for solutions is more urgent than ever. Based on our discussions on the way forward, I decided that I would convene another 5+1 meeting after adequate preparations on confidence-building, methodology and substance, taking into account the convergences already achieved. We will work in consultation with the two sides and the guarantors to create the conditions for the meeting's success. And throughout my visits, and in my ongoing outreach with leaders, one message is impossible to ignore: the region and the world cannot afford More war. More war. We are now 6 months into the military escalation in the Gulf. What began as a regional conflict is increasingly becoming a driver of global instability. Trade through the Strait of Hormuz has collapsed. Energy markets have been upended. Prices of food and key fertilizers have surged. Supply chains are buckling. Around the world, we see families struggling to put food on the table, farmers unable to afford basic inputs, and vulnerable countries pushed closer to the edge. The World Food Programme warns that as many as 45 million people could face acute food insecurity as a result. And rising prices and slowing growth threaten to push millions more back into poverty. The only good news in recent days is the announcement by the US President of an agreement for Hamas to relinquish their weapons and for Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza. Let me be clear: the fighting must stop on all fronts in the region. International navigation rights and freedoms in and around the Strait of Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb must be fully restored. And diplomacy must prevail. Dear members of the media, conflict is not the only force placing people at risk. Even as we grapple with war and instability, another crisis is accelerating— one that respects no borders and is devastating lives and livelihoods across the globe. 2 months ago, I warned that El Niño was arriving on our doorstep. Now it is inside the house and turning up the heat. We have already endured a summer of extremes. Record-shattering heat domes. Apocalyptic wildfires raging in Spain, France and far beyond. Thousands of lives lost in the scorching conditions. And global sea surface temperatures, with records in June and July. But according to the latest science, this is only a warm-up act. New forecasts released today by the World Meteorological Organization provide a stark picture of the period from August through October. El Niño is strengthening, adding fuel to a planet already on fire. The Pacific waters driving it have never been this warm this early in an El Niño, and temperatures are still rising. Today's latest news indicates sea surface temperatures in key monitoring regions to average nearly 3 degrees Celsius above normal. At the same time, WMO's outlook shows that through October, nearly every land area on Earth is expected to be hotter than normal. Taken together, that risks shattering every seasonal record and driving even more severe effects worldwide. We are in uncharted territory. And El Niño does not bring heat alone. It profoundly affects the world's rainfall. India's monsoon is already running well below average. Forecasts point to worse ahead, for a subcontinent where more than a billion people depend on the monsoon. Hotter and drier conditions are forecast from Central America and the Caribbean to parts of South America, South Asia, the Southwest Pacific, Europe and Africa. The verdict is clear: the climate crisis is in overdrive. Extreme heat has long been called the silent killer. Yet even that description may understate the crisis, because heat deaths are vastly undercounted around the world. Many fatalities linked to extreme heat are never recorded as such, even when heat plays a decisive role. What we do know is deeply alarming. Heat is claiming lives on a growing scale, day after day, in every region of the world. It's also putting an enormous share of the global workforce at risk, exposing billions of people to dangers and often life-threatening conditions. And behind all of the numbers are people. Families trapped in unsafe homes. Workers forced to choose between their health and their income. Children unable to learn. Hospitals and power grids under pressure. Roads buckling and railways failing. Supply chains disrupted and food prices rising. Entire cities struggling to function. And while extreme heat is a global crisis, those who have done the least to fuel it are paying the highest price: children, older persons, people with disabilities, outdoor workers, people living in informal settlements, and communities pushed to the margins. Extreme heat is widening inequalities, deepening hunger, weakening economies, and pushing development further out of reach. 2 years ago this month, I launched a Call to Action on Extreme Heat. And since then, we have helped more governments improve forecasts and early warning. buildings. More cities have adopted heat action plans, and over 250 have joined the Beat the Heat initiative. These measures are saving lives. But the planet is heating faster than our response. We need far more action on 4 fronts. First, protecting people before heat becomes deadlier. Every city and country should have heat health action plans, early warning systems, and public health measures that reach every community in time. And access to sustainable cooling must expand urgently and equitably. Extreme heat is a society-wide threat and demands a government-wide response. Second, make work safer. Take the garment industry. More than 90 million workers, most of them women. In 17 of its 23 biggest production hubs, dangerously hot days have jumped by more than 10% in 2 decades. Yet most global brands set no heat standards for the factories that supply them. Governments and employers must set heat standards, adjusting working hours, and protect incomes when work must stop. No one should have to risk their life to earn a living. Third, build and retrofit for the heat that is coming. Protection from extreme heat must be designed in our cities, homes, schools and hospitals, and factored into every plan and public budget. And fourth, and fundamentally, the world must stop fuelling the crisis. We hear much about record heat, drought and wildfires, but not enough about the real change that is driving these events— the accelerating climate crisis powered by fossil fuels. It's time to stop treating each disaster as an isolated tragedy, and recognize the systemic risk that is unfolding before our eyes. And make no mistake. The costs of fossil fuels are measured not only in climate disasters, but also in energy insecurity and geopolitical instability, as we see playing out today in the Middle East and beyond. Every new fossil fuel project approved today makes tomorrow's heatwaves more dangerous and our world less secure. Yet some governments still plan to produce more than twice as much fossil fuel in 2030 as the 1.5-degree limit allows. And fossil fuels still enjoy trillions of dollars a year in subsidies and underpricing. We are spending too much public money fueling the crisis, and too little protecting the people from it. More coal, oil and gas will lead to a more combustible future. Today's findings show that extreme heat is not a future threat. It is here. It is becoming more dangerous. And unless we act to protect people and tackle the root causes of the crisis, it will become deadlier still. The warm-up act is over. We cannot afford to wait for the main event. Thank you.

We will now turn to questions. First question goes to Edie Lederer.

Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary-General. Edith Lederer from the Associated Press, and have a good summer. Since the climate is getting more extreme, especially with a super strong El Niño, why do you think world leaders and the public are paying less attention and don't make it more of a priority? And what could the United Nations and others do differently to change that and put it really on a front burner?

I think there are 2 reasons that contribute to the fact that there is not enough conscience of the existential threat we are facing. One reason is that we are all extremely absorbed by the dramatic security crisis, namely the war in Ukraine, the complex war in the Middle East, situations in Sudan and many others that permanently attract and mobilize the international public opinion, forgetting other aspects that are sometimes an even more dangerous threat. And second, because there is a deliberate campaign, namely by the fossil fuel industry and some countries, in order to pretend that the problems that we are witnessing indeed do not exist. And what the UN must do is be more and more active in addressing this challenge, in naming the situations as they are and the responsibilities as they are, and mobilizing the public opinion to tell governments It's time to recognize this threat as an existential threat to us all that is killing lots of people and creating enormous problems to the most vulnerable people and communities.

Hello, Mr. Secretary-General. Gabriel Elizondo from Al Jazeera English. I wanted to follow up on something that you mentioned in your remarks. You said that in the last few days, the one or only bit of good news was the announcement by the President of the United States about a deal for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw. My question is, I think everyone would agree peace in the region, it would be a good thing. But as you know better than anyone, implementation has always been a challenge. What is your message to both parties, but specifically to Israel? We're already hearing— while Israel has not made a formal announcement yet, We're already hearing that Israel is very skeptical of this and already signaling that they will not withdraw until Hamas gives up its weapons. How do you see— what's your message to specifically both sides?

It was announced already that there is a roadmap to implement these objectives. That roadmap must be followed without any questions, scepticism, or determination to undermine it. Now is the time for both sides to implement what was agreed.

Georgia.

Thank you, Secretary General. This is Georgia Garangiotti from Greek national television and Cyprus News Agency. What would you mean by meaningful, adequate preparation for a 5+1 meeting on the Cyprus issue?

Exactly that. I mean, we had several meetings of the 5+1 that were not able to reach conclusions because they had not been well prepared. This time we need to prepare well the next meeting in order to make sure that it leads to a solution.

Thank you so much, Secretary-General. This is Efraim Kousaifi with Arab News Daily. On the complex regional war in the Middle East, as you call it, a recent development, the attack on Saudi Arabia by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. How worried are you that Iraq is now being dragged into being a proxy in this war, and what would you like to see the Iraqi government do or act in the face of this threat?

I think the Iraqi government has indicated very clearly their wish for Iraq, first of all, not to be instrumentalized by anybody, and second, for the state to have the monopoly of the use of force inside Iraq. And we fully support that determination of the government of Iraq.

Secretary General, this is Pamela Falk from U.S. News and World Report. Also, have a good summer after this. My question is about the food insecurity aspect of what you talked about, about the heat issue and increase in heat. Will you be amping up the support for the World Food Program? And who— when do you see a leader, a permanent leader appointed? There's the U.S. nominee, Luke Lindberg, and there's Carl Skow, who's presently in place as acting. Thank you.

The process is moving and is moving naturally, and it will conclude in the right moment. We all want WFP to be very effective.

And do you see WFP as amping up aid on the food insecurity?

Unfortunately, we have much less aid on food security as on any other humanitarian objective than what we should have. But we will do as much as we can in all our agencies with the scarce resources we have, because our objective is always the same— to work for the people we care for, and especially for the most vulnerable people around the world. Thank you very much.