BERLIN — The war in Ukraine has upended global energy markets, but United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that the scramble to replace Russian oil, gas and coal could lock the world into a far more dangerous future: runaway climate change.
Speaking at an Economist event, Guterres said the “all-of-the-above” strategy now being pursued by major economies — a frantic push to secure fossil fuels from any source — threatens to derail efforts to keep global warming below dangerous levels. He called the rush to replace Russian supplies “madness.”
“Addiction to fossil fuels is mutually assured destruction,” he said.
The warning came as the United States and European allies imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, sending energy prices soaring and exposing Europe’s deep dependence on Russian gas and oil. Germany, long one of Russia’s biggest energy customers, announced plans to boost oil imports from the Gulf and accelerate construction of liquefied natural gas terminals. In the United States, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki earlier this month urged American oil and gas producers to “go get more supply out of the ground in our own country.”
This is the context Guterres was addressing. His argument: the crisis should speed up, not slow, the transition to clean energy.
“Instead of hitting the brakes on the decarbonization of the global economy, now is the time to put the pedal to the metal towards a renewable energy future,” he said.
The timing was no accident. His comments coincided with the start of a two-week meeting of scientists on the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They are finalizing their latest report on global efforts to curb emissions. A separate IPCC report earlier this year laid out in stark terms how fast the planet is warming and how little time remains to act.
Guterres’s intervention reflects a growing fear among climate advocates: that the immediate, visible crisis of energy supply will crowd out the slower, less visible crisis of a warming planet. The logic is brutal but simple. When people are freezing in their homes or paying record prices at the pump, governments cut taxes on fuel, approve new drilling permits, and build new pipelines. Long-term climate goals become an afterthought.
The risk, Guterres said, is that countries become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or even kneecap policies to cut fossil fuel use. That is the “mutually assured destruction” he warned of — not nuclear war, but a different kind of collective suicide.
Ukraine is not the cause of this dilemma, but it has laid it bare. Europe’s reliance on Russian gas was built over decades. Germany alone imported roughly half its natural gas from Russia before the war. The sanctions and the conflict have shattered that arrangement, forcing a frantic search for alternatives. Many of those alternatives are fossil fuels — just from different places.
Guterres’s message is that this moment, for all its danger, is also an opportunity. The same urgency that drives nations to build LNG terminals and reopen coal plants could, if redirected, drive a massive build-out of solar, wind, and battery storage. But that requires political will. And political will, in a crisis, tends to flow toward the quickest fix, not the best long-term solution.
The U.N. chief’s words were blunt. He did not mince them. He called the current trajectory “madness.” He said the world’s addiction to fossil fuels was leading toward disaster. He said the time to act is now.
Whether governments listen remains an open question. The IPCC scientists are in the middle of their own work, compiling the evidence. The facts are clear. The question is whether the crisis in Ukraine will become a turning point — or a detour.
