U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres began his speech to the World Economic Forum by taking issue with its theme for this year's gathering.
The speech on Wednesday offered more evidence that Guterres, a veteran politician and tireless champion of fighting climate change, and his speechwriters have a knack for finding novel ways of repeating the same dire and necessary warnings about our "fossil fuel addiction" that keep generating the headlines needed to cut through the social media noise.
"Your focus this year is on Collaboration for the Intelligent Age — and it is a noble vision. But let’s face it. When many people look around the world, they don’t see much collaboration. And, perhaps to their minds, not enough intelligence," he told a conference room of government leaders, CEOs and other power brokers in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday.
"Despite progress on many fronts — investments in renewables, technological leaps, health advances — many of our world’s problems are getting worse. We are living in an increasingly rudderless world."
His pointed remarks about the world's paucity of multilateral collaboration and intelligence were aimed at focusing attention on two red-hot central issues: rising global temperatures and unregulated artificial intelligence.
His speech came a day after incoming U.S. President Donald Trump announced his withdrawal of the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and from the World Health Organization for a second time.
Instead of curbing fossil fuel use, as the Paris treaty aims to do, Trump said he will declare a “national energy emergency” – though the U.S. now produces more oil than any other country, even Saudi Arabia and Russia.
He vowed to streamline regulations that “impose undue burdens on energy production and use, including mining and processing of non-fuel minerals," and to end land and water leasing for wind energy.
“The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices,” he said in his inaugural address. “That’s why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill.”
By contrast, Guterres, who took office at the start of 2017 weeks before Trump's first term began, has promoted renewable energy development.
He pointed to a recent analysis by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative that noted the irony of rising sea levels – caused by rising temperatures mainly from the burning of fossil fuels – threatening to overwhelm 13 of the world’s biggest ports for oil supertankers.
"Our fossil fuel addiction is a Frankenstein monster, sparing nothing and no one. All around us, we see clear signs that the monster has become master," he said, citing World Meteorological Organization findings that the global average surface temperature in 2024 likely was 1.55° Celsius above pre-industrial levels – the warmest calendar year on record and first to exceed the major climate threshold set under the Paris treaty.
Ungoverned AI, the other existential threat, Guterres said, could revolutionize education, health care and agriculture – but it also can be a tool of deception. It can disrupt economies and labor markets, undermine trust in institutions and have chilling effects on the battlefield, he said.
"And AI could deepen inequalities by excluding those without the resources or tools to benefit from its promise," said Guterres. "Once again, collaboration is critical."
