Guterres Urges Youth to Lead Fight to End Fossil Fuels

Participants during UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s Youth Roundtable at COP30 in Belém, Brazil.

A sense of momentum is building. After years of debate, a long-awaited roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels may finally be written into the official decisions of COP30.

On Tuesday in Belém, ministers from Colombia, Germany, Kenya, the Marshall Islands, Sierra Leone, the United Kingdom and several other countries expressed strong support for Brazil’s proposal to prioritise the issue in this year’s UN climate negotiations.

The coalition urged negotiators to strengthen language on the fossil fuel transition in the draft text, scheduled for approval on Wednesday. Their goal is to speed up action and keep global warming within the 1.5°C limit.

A hush fell as COP30 Youth Champion Marcele Oliveira stepped forward, carrying the urgency of an entire generation. “Fossil fuels are destroying dreams,” she warned, calling the shift away from them “the most important climate justice mobilisation of this generation.”

Protecting the future

Speaking to UN News, Ms Oliveira stressed that children and young people must be central to every COP30 discussion.

She noted that the International Court of Justice had declared that inaction on climate change amounts to an environmental crime. “We need to pressure countries to make better climate decisions, and this is a priority,” she said.

She added that moving away from fossil fuels, investing in forest protection and safeguarding those who defend them are crucial steps. Recognising youth-led collective action at the local level, she said, is equally important.

Guterres: A ‘decisive battle’

Later in the day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres met youth delegates and offered an apology — one heavy with acknowledgement. Past generations, he said, failed to contain the climate crisis, and scientific projections show temperatures will surpass the 1.5°C threshold.

He called on young people to join him in what he described as the “decisive battle” to ensure the overshoot is as brief as possible.

Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy, he warned, requires confronting powerful lobby groups that “put profits above the well-being of the international community and the planet.” Youth pressure, he stressed, is indispensable at COP30.

‘We just want to be children!’

Sixteen-year-old João Victor da Silva from Brazil told the UN chief: “We don’t want to be activists, we just want to be children and adolescents, but unfortunately adults are not making the right decisions.”

Nigel Maduro from Aruba shared a painful truth: the beaches where he learned to swim are disappearing. Negotiations, he said, move too slowly for island nations facing extreme heat and rising seas.

Youth from several countries echoed the same message: act now to secure a habitable future.

The Secretary-General agreed that greater youth participation — particularly from Indigenous communities — would lead to better outcomes. He acknowledged calls for more direct, less bureaucratic financing for Indigenous peoples and pledged to improve conditions.

‘Protests are a defining feature of COP30’

Indigenous leader Txai Suruí described the youth meeting as one of COP30’s most hopeful moments. But she warned that the Amazon is dangerously close to a tipping point that could drive the forest toward desertification.

“The protests are a distinguishing feature of this COP. Some countries may not like them, but Brazil is a democratic country, and protests help ensure leaders make decisions in favour of life,” she said.

Ms Suruí noted that corporate lobbying remains larger than all official delegations combined — and far larger than Indigenous representation — creating an imbalance of voices. Yet she sees growing recognition of Indigenous peoples as guardians of nature.

A ‘just transition’

For Ms Oliveira, the shift away from fossil fuels must be just — an approach that “listens to, welcomes and hears the territories.” She emphasised that measures such as demarcating Indigenous lands are essential to ensure the transition does not further harm communities already affected.