Can there be such a thing? A leader who has no followers – or only followers who are too few or too weak to have an impact?
The answer to this question depends of course on how the word “leader” is being defined. Here I will avoid the definitional wrangle. I will simply assert that by virtue of the position he holds, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Portuguese politician and diplomat, Antonio Guterres, is a leader.
As much as any other world leader, Guterres has warned for years about the dangers of climate change. In 2022, for example, he claimed that humanity was becoming a “weapon of mass extinction.” And that people were “treating nature like a toilet.”
This week – just as we learned that never before has there been a July as hot as the this one – Guterres did it again. He again warned, loudly, clearly, even eloquently, that people were burning the planet. That global warming had ended, and that “global boiling” had started. That the air was “unbreathable.” That the heat was “unbearable.” And that both fossil fuel profits and climate inaction were “unacceptable.”
Guterres called on the world’s leaders – primarily presumably leaders in government – to act and to act fast. “There is simply no more time” to wait, he warned.
Trouble is that the United Nations is largely without power. Trouble is that the Secretary General of the United Nations is largely without power. Trouble is that the post he holds – and therefore he himself – does not even carry much influence.
Too bad. Because United Nations’ Secretary Generals are so systemically and structurally enfeebled, Guterres’s warnings remain largely unheard and unheeded. He is a leader who lacks the power, authority, and influence to lead. He is a leader who, effectively, lacks followers. Which is one of the countless reasons why global boiling goes on. And on.