Global economy must move past GDP to avoid planetary disaster, warns UN chief

February 9, 2026

Matthew Taylor

The Guardian

The global economy must be radically transformed to stop it rewarding pollution and waste, UN secretary general António Guterres has warned.

Speaking to the Guardian after the UN hosted a meeting of leading global economists, Guterres said humanity’s future required the urgent overhaul of the world’s “existing accounting systems” he said were driving the planet to the brink of disaster.

António Guterres called for economies to ‘move beyond GDP’ as a measure of economic and societal success. Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters