World leaders urge stronger and faster action at UN climate talks over inadequate response

ANTALYA, Turkey — It's time to act decisively and urgently to curb global warming, which is wreaking havoc with deadly floods, heat waves and other disasters, the United Nations chief told world leaders Wednesday as formal talks began at the U.N. climate conference in Turkey. “We know the truth. Now we must act on it because climate action is more than a fight over a number or a thermometer," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in an opening speech. “We are in the fight for our lives and our children’s future." But top leaders of the world’s three biggest polluting nations — China, the United States and India, together responsible for more than half of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions — skipped the summit, known as COP31. Their absence left a handful of national leaders and U.N. officials to press for action as a new report warned of a widening gap between countries’ climate pledges and actual emissions cuts. Scientists say global warming is likely to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Limiting warming to that t