‘Subsidising suicide’: UN chief urges governments to stop propping up polluting fossil fuels

"Subsidising fossil fuels is subsidising suicide," UN chief Antonio Guterres told leaders today (16 October) ahead of next week's UN biodiversity summit, COP17.

At an event in Yerevan, Armenia, Guterres said governments were still "spending money on the wrong things" and singled out incentives for fossil fuels.

He urged countries to stop subsidising the production of fossil fuels that are "boiling our planet and are the scourge of biodiversity".

"I urge governments everywhere to end these handouts once and for all, and to use the savings for people and planet instead," he said.

EU finance ministers earlier this month called for a phaseout of fossil fuel subsidies at the COP31 climate negotiations taking place in November.