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U.S. Is Missing the Century’s ‘Greatest Economic Opportunity,’ U.N. Chief Says

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In a speech on renewable energy, António Guterres cited “clear market distortion” in favor of fossil fuels by President Trump and others but called the transition to cleaner energy economically inevitable.

António Guterres, wearing a gray suit and aquamarine tie, sits at a desk holding a pencil to his chin.

July 22, 2025, 10:37 a.m. ET

The United Nations secretary general’s speech on Tuesday was billed as a rare, optimistic one on the future of climate change.

Look at the cold, hard economic data, António Guterres, the U.N. chief, said, and you will see that the world’s transition from polluting fossil fuels to cleaner renewable energy is “unstoppable.”

But then there was the matter of the world’s largest economy, the United States.

President Trump pulled the United States out of the main international agreement to limit climate change and has, with Congress, sought to cripple domestic wind and solar power industries, the growth of electric vehicles and climate science research.

The United States and those that follow its lead are “missing the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century,” said Mr. Guterres. Their policies have imperiled global progress through the “clear market distortion” of subsidizing fossil fuels at a nine-to-one ratio against renewables.

And yet even against those odds, Mr. Guterres said, he was “never more confident that they will fail, because we have passed the point of no return.”

That is debatable. A country’s energy choices are subject to change amid the shifting winds of technological innovation and geopolitics. But Mr. Guterres said he saw economics as destiny. “Just follow the money,” he said.