“The most polluting countries and companies do not just turn a blind eye [face à la crise climatique] : they throw oil on the fire.” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has abandoned diplomatic language after an alarming new IPCC report was released in April 2022. “They are suffocating our planet in the service of their particular interests”, again accused the 73-year-old former Portuguese Prime Minister. A spectacular change, of which climate experts await the concrete effects, as COP27 opens, from November 6 to 18, in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt.
“It is a subject on which he has few limits, because he considers that it is his role to say the things that annoysays one of her advisers in New York. He often laughs saying that he needs to be a terrorist on these subjects. His speeches, sometimes worthy of the indictments of the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, are now assumed.
“Climate activists are sometimes portrayed as dangerous radicals, when the real dangerous radicals are countries that increase fossil fuel production.”
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary Generalin a video posted on April 4, 2022
In the sphere of climate advocates, this change in tone hit the mark. “There is so much unconsciousness in the face of the gravity of the situation, someone has to tell the truth”, says Laurence Tubiana, director of the European Climate Foundation and former chief negotiator of COP21. “He does it, with the authority he represents.” Same enthusiasm among climate activists. “We consider him an ally”summarizes Aurore Mathieu, head of international policies at the Climate Action Network. But his speeches and his political line have not always been in agreement with his current position on the fight against global warming.
To better observe the transformation of Antonio Guterres, we must go back to the 1990s, in a Portugal then nicknamed “the little dragon of Europe”. On October 28, 1995, Antonio Guterres was appointed Prime Minister, at the age of 46. His strategy consisted in bringing the socialist party, the PSD, which he has led since 1992, towards the centre. “He put aside all references to Marxism, all the speech marked by the Carnation Revolution” which put an end to 50 years of dictatorship, details Yves Leonard, historian specializing in Portugal. The main objective of the country is then to enter the euro zone.
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“The fact that France put its weight behind Portugal’s entry into the euro, it brought us closer”, remembers Lionel Jospin. The French Prime Minister at the time described “a man of dialogue” at European summits. An executive “friendly, seeking compromise, a facilitator”. The two men rub shoulders at bilateral meetings but also at the Socialist International. “His vision was to seek economic efficiency but with important social and redistributive objectives”recalls Lionel Jospin.
Socialist and practicing Catholic, Antonio Guterres claims to have engaged in public life to fight inequality. “When I was at the youth center of the Catholic University and at the social welfare center, I was confronted with such social injustices that it made me want to dedicate myself to politics”he says in a biography dedicated to him, Honest Broker (not translated into French). Her faith “permeates much of his public attitude”explains the historian Yves Léonard.
But Antonio Guterres remains above all the one “which allowed Portugal to join the eurocontinues Yves Léonard. He takes great pride in it.”. The Portuguese Prime Minister has therefore concentrated all his efforts on modernizing his country’s infrastructure. A logic “not always in harmony with a respectful environmental policy”, recalls the historian. Many roads and highways are emerging and construction sites are spreading along the Iberian coast, in “the logic of everything goes wrong”notes the historian.
“I am part of a generation that waged war on nature”, recognized Antonio Guterres in June 2022 in an interview with Euronews. Was he thinking of those years at the head of his native country? “Partly, I think, he knows it became an existential cause for him later in his career,” says one of her advisers at the UN. “Awareness did not have the intensity it has todayobserves Lionel Jospin. In this sense, we can speak of a too late awareness.
In his journey towards climate awareness, Antonio Guterres is first made aware of the plight of refugees and displaced persons. In 2005, Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations, chose him for the post of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. There are 10 years left. Two mandates during which he must manage one of the worst migration crises in the world, linked to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.
During this decade, the number of displaced people rose from 38 million to 60 million in 2015, according to the UN. Antonio Guterres also has the opportunity to see “the population movements and uprooting to which climate change could lead”, details a former adviser. In 2013, for example, climate disasters caused the displacement of 21.9 million people worldwide, three times more than conflicts.
Upon his arrival at the UN General Secretariat in January 2017, he placed the fight against global warming at the top of his priorities. “He very quickly saw the climate as the matrix of tomorrow’s multilateralism”, analyzes a former adviser. The arrival of Donald Trump as President of the United States in January 2018, however, complicates the task. The latter promises to withdraw from the Paris agreement, by which all the States have agreed on the principle of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
Many observers underline the personal involvement of Antonio Guterres in bringing to a successful conclusion the COP24 in Katowice (Poland) in December 2018, “while the momentum of the Paris agreement could have been lost”underlines the adviser who accompanied him. “He had really put his weight on the table, which is rare,” confirms Laurence Tubiana, former chief negotiator of COP21.
In September 2019, he organizes a big summit, forcing the States to come up with new announcements. Those who arrive empty-handed are rejected, “it was daring not to invite everyone”, analyzes a source close to climate negotiations in France. “As soon as he has a trip, he tries to put a climate dimension to it”reports one of his advisers.
“Very often, he tells us that he thinks a lot about the world he leaves to his little girls, it’s one of the great injustices that outrage him.”
an adviser to Antonio Guterresat franceinfo
The climate crisis is hitting even harder now. “I have never seen climate carnage of this magnitude, I have no words to describe what I saw today”,says Antonio Guterres from Islamabad, Pakistan in September. Deadly floods killed nearly 1,500 people there. In the midst of this chaos, he tries to alert: “Pakistan is paying the price for something that was created by others.”
Of this passage in Pakistan, Antonio Guterres “came back extremely marked”according to one of his advisers. Seeing entire groups of people who suddenly lose everything, not only their homes but also their sources of income, it touches him deeply.” For her, Antonio Guterres has developed a sincere personal conviction on the climate.
But are his declarations, as radical as they may seem, sufficient? “No one listens to him anymore”, considers Franz Baumann, a former German UN official. “It does not tell producers like Saudi Arabia to stop pumping oil, he continues. He remains very general, that’s why I call him a ‘preacher'”.
Other observers deplore the loss of influence of the UN, which has become “almost a humanitarian organization more than a political one”according to Romuald Sciora, associate researcher at Iris. “Antonio Guterres embodies the political sinking of the United Nations, strikes this UN specialist, “that’s why he tries to weave, to reinforce this image of a very committed actor in the fight against global warming.”
“He’s not a radical, he’s a social democrat, nuances a former adviser to the UN secretary general. But he sees clearly that the commitments of the States are still not there, so he puts them face to face with their responsibilities”. In June 2022, during an interview with Euronews, Antonio Guterres still fervently supported the many UN reports which underline the extent of the efforts that remain to be made on oil, coal and gas. Continuing to invest in fossil fuels is ‘suicidal'”, let go of the UN Secretary General, determined to continue his fight for the climate.