Guterres issued a robust defence of "clear-eyed" climate science and data, without which, he said, the world would never have understood the emergence of the "dangerous and existential threat of climate change".
"We must fight mis- and disinformation, online harassment, and greenwashing," Guterres said at the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) weather and climate agency in Geneva.
"Scientists and researchers should never fear telling the truth."
Guterres's remarks will be seen in some quarters as a riposte to Trump's speech at the United Nations in New York last month, in which the Republican president championed fossil fuels and derided green technologies.
"Climate change -- it's the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion," said Trump.
The "carbon footprint is a hoax made up by people with evil intentions", he said.
"We're getting rid of the falsely named renewables, by the way: they're a joke, they don't work, they're too expensive," he added, about his administration's war on solar and wind power, bolstered by a new law that ends clean energy tax credits.
- Planet on the 'brink' -
But Guterres insisted that in 2024, "almost all new power capacity came from renewables", and investment was surging.
"Renewables are the cheapest, fastest and smartest source of new power. They represent the only credible path to end the relentless destruction of our climate," he insisted.
The WMO is marking its 75 anniversary this year, and is leading the charge for all countries to be covered by extreme weather early warning systems by 2027.
"Global warming is pushing our planet to the brink," said Guterres.
"Every one of the last 10 years has been the hottest in history. Ocean heat is breaking records while decimating ecosystems. And no country is safe from fires, floods, storms and heatwaves.
"As always, the poorest and most vulnerable countries pay the highest price -- particularly small island developing states and the least developed countries."
The COP30 summit will be held in the Brazilian Amazon city of Belem from November 10-21.
The UN secretary-general said countries needed strong domestic climate action plans in time for the summit, urging nations to address the problem of climate disasters at source.
"By November's UN Climate Conference in Brazil, countries must deliver bold new national climate action plans that align with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius," Guterres said.
He said these had to include commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade.
"Much greater ambition is required."
Scrapped by Trump, revived US climate-disaster database reveals record losses
Washington (AFP) Oct 22, 2025 -
A flagship US climate-disaster database killed by President Donald Trump's administration has been brought back to life by its former lead scientist -- revealing that extreme weather inflicted a record $101 billion in damages in just the first half of 2025.
The Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters tracker, long maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), chronicled major US catastrophes from 1980 to 2024 before it was abruptly shut down in May amid sweeping budget cuts that critics decried as an ideologically driven attack on science.
"This dataset was simply too important to stop being updated, and the demand for its revival came from every sector of society," Adam Smith, an applied climatologist who helmed the database for 15 years before resigning in May, told AFP.
Among those calling for its return were groups such as the American Academy of Actuaries, who argued the list was a vital tool for tracking the rising costs of climate-fueled disasters, from wildfires to floods, that threaten homeowners, insurers, and mortgage markets.
Congressional Democrats have also sought to restore the program within NOAA, introducing a bill last month that has yet to advance.
Now based at the nonprofit Climate Central, Smith said he worked with an interdisciplinary team of experts in meteorology, economics, risk management, communication, and web design over recent months to recreate the dataset using the same public and private data sources and methodologies.
The new findings, he said, show that "the year started out with a bang": the Los Angeles wildfires were likely the costliest in history, with insured losses reaching an estimated $60 billion.
That was followed by a barrage of spring storms across the central and southern United States, including several destructive tornadoes.
Altogether, 14 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters between January and June caused $101.4 billion in inflation-adjusted damages -- though 2025 as a whole may fall short of a record, thanks to a milder-than-usual Atlantic hurricane season.
Smith said his decision to leave NOAA stemmed from his realization that "the current environment to do science, across the board, is becoming more difficult, and that's likely an understatement."
But he added he was happy to give the dataset a new home so it can remain a "public good" and continue to publish updates at regular intervals.
Looking ahead, the team plans to broaden the scope of the tracker to include events causing at least $100 million in losses -- to capture the smaller and mid-sized disasters that still have "life-changing impacts to lives and livelihoods."
Online search a battleground for AI titans
New York (AFP) Oct 23, 2025 -
Tech firms battling for supremacy in artificial intelligence are out to transform how people search the web, challenging the dominance of the Chrome browser at the heart of Google's empire.
Chatbots that started out as AI-powered assistants have gradually merged with web browsers and can independently scour the internet for detailed answers to questions.
OpenAI fired the latest salvo this week with the debut of what chief executive Sam Altman called an AI-powered web browser built around ChatGPT.
During a demonstration, members of the OpenAI team had the Atlas browser come up with a shopping list for a dinner based on a specified dish and number of guests.
Atlas joins Perplexity's Comet, Microsoft's Copilot-enabled Edge and newcomers Dia and Neon in this new breed of chatbot-browser hybrid.
"So many services and apps are browser-based that it makes a lot of sense to have agentic AI acting in the browser," said Techsponential lead analyst Avi Greengart.
Whereas early AI assistants simply returned answers, focus has shifted to enabling them to act as "agents," independently handling computer or online tasks such as setting schedules, making reservations or ordering pizza.
Now, AI makers are keen to usurp the role of the browser and streamline users' interactions with the web.
"We used to download a lot of applications to our computers," said SuRo Capital principal Evan Schlossman.
"You don't download that many programs anymore; things are moving to the browser."
As online exploration tools evolve with AI, they have yet to stray far from how people are already navigating the internet themselves.
"I think they don't want to change the core experience too much," Greengart said.
"Agentic AI following you around and offering help every time you do anything probably isn't right for everyone."
- Google has a hold -
Despite its prowess when it comes to AI, Google has yet to go all-in with agentic features in Chrome on par with those touted by challengers.
The internet colossus has added AI Overviews that provide summaries of online query results, and offers the option of using an "AI Mode" for searches with advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities.
Chrome currently accounts for more than 70 percent of the browser market and Google's name has become synonymous with search.
Futurum Group chief executive Daniel Newman does not see that shifting in the short term given how deeply ingrained Chrome use is in modern lifestyles.
But Thomas Thiele, a partner at consulting firm Arthur D. Little, said OpenAI could gain an advantage by combining what it learns from people's ChatGPT exchanges with the Atlas browser.
"Gathering this information together, you can have more clues about persons than any time before," Thiele said.
"We'd at least have a high chance that we'd see the birth of a new Google here."
More insights into people can translate into better targeting of online ads, Google's main source of revenue.
- Defining tomorrow -
By taking control of the browser, an AI company could define how people will interact with the technology in the future, Thiele reasoned.
"In the long run, the browser is not necessarily where everything happens," Newman said, noting smart glasses or other wearable devices for engaging with the internet could catch on.
"We're shaping behavior; winning where users currently are is going to be critical for that long-term market share that they are all fighting for."
But SuRo Capital's Schlossman anticipates the AI fight to unfold directly within chatbots rather than browsers.
He recalled a recent demo that featured apps moving into ChatGPT. OpenAI is "trying to control the user interface and optimize and streamline it," Schlossman said.
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