World Leaders Meet at the UN to Talk Climate Change

World leaders and business executives gathered in New York City this week for the United Nations General Assembly. The meeting began Tuesday, September 22, with leaders debating some of the biggest problems facing the planet. Topics included rising energy prices, deadly natural disasters, and how artificial intelligence affects the environment. More than 1,300 people died this summer in flooding caused by a collapsing glacier on the Nepal-China border, adding urgency to the talks.

Climate scientist Bill Hare, who leads an organization called Climate Analytics, said the effects of climate change are no longer small or hidden. "We've gone from seeing the fingerprints of climate change in individual events to seeing the handprint of climate change on the whole world," he said. Leaders at the assembly agreed that action can no longer wait. This year's meeting felt especially urgent after a summer filled with deadly heat waves, massive wildfires, and severe flooding around the world.

One major concern at the meeting was the rising cost of energy and food. United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell said climate change is pushing up food prices and causing wider inflation. He explained that wars in Iran and Ukraine have made fossil fuels more expensive, costing American consumers more than $100 billion in higher fuel prices. Protests over high prices have spread across many countries, and consumer confidence in the U.S. has dropped sharply.

Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, described two very different climate stories happening at the same time. The first story is hopeful — renewable energy like solar and wind power is growing fast and getting cheaper. The second story is scary — climate disasters are getting worse faster than governments and businesses are responding. "New York needs to bring those two stories together," Adow said.

Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke at a Climate Week event and urged the world not to stand still. "The global community cannot afford to be frozen in time while the world warms around us," he said. His words reflected the growing frustration many leaders feel about slow progress on cutting carbon pollution. Many countries are still burning large amounts of coal, oil, and gas even as renewable energy grows.

A hot topic this week was the impact of artificial intelligence, or AI, and the giant computer buildings called data centers that power it. These data centers use huge amounts of electricity and water, which can add to pollution and strain resources. Simon Stiell warned that "energy-guzzling artificial intelligence is driving up planet-heating pollution from coal, oil and gas." He added that AI companies are quickly losing public support because of their energy use.

However, some experts say AI can actually help fight climate change in the long run. Evelyn Wang, a vice president at MIT who focuses on energy and climate, said data centers could be water neutral in about five years. She predicted that within a decade, data centers would no longer add to the warming problem at all. "It's not forever," Wang said, meaning the current strain on resources will eventually be solved.

Eva Riesenhuber of Siemens agreed that AI uses a lot of resources right now, but said companies are working hard to fix the problem. She said AI is too important to give up because the world needs it to design a better, cleaner future. Jennifer Morgan, an analyst at Tufts University, pointed out that AI has become even more criticized in climate talks than the fossil fuel industry itself. Several protests against AI's environmental impact were planned throughout the week.

A new report released Monday said the world can still reach its goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, but only if it moves much faster. Last year, the world added a record 693 gigawatts of renewable power — about half of all the electricity used in the United States. But experts say countries must build even more renewable energy from 2026 to 2030 than in all previous years combined. At the same time, China added more coal power in 2025, causing a sharp jump in fossil fuel use.

Johan Rockström, a climate scientist from Germany, said the growth of renewables is impressive but not yet enough to reduce the use of oil, coal, and gas. He explained that renewables are meeting new demand for electricity, but they are not replacing fossil fuels fast enough to cut carbon pollution. Interestingly, he noted that wars in Iran, Ukraine, and Venezuela have caused oil and gas shortages, which pushed some countries to switch to renewables faster. United Kingdom Secretary of State Edward Miliband added that moving to clean energy is not just good for jobs and the environment — it is also a matter of national security.