More political leaders are directly linking fossil fuels to climate change

"The climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis."

That sentiment made its way through New York City last week, as the United Nations General Assembly, the UN Climate Ambition Summit and NYC Climate Week collectively drew in thousands of participants. But it wasn't only written on protest placards. 

Echoing up through the chambers of the United Nations, the pointed message was hard to miss. 

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who has a track record of being direct about climate risks, didn't mince words as he hosted the first-ever UN Climate Ambition Summit on Wednesday.

"We must make up time lost to foot-dragging, arm-twisting and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels," Guterres said in his opening remarks.

WATCH | Guterres kicks off UN Climate Ambition Summit:

He was followed by high-profile speakers from 34 countries, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But UN under-secretary-general Melissa Fleming challenged Trudeau publicly before he took the floor, saying "Canada was one of the largest expanders of fossil fuels last year."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom was also in town and emphasized the connection between climate change and "the burning of oil, the burning of gas, the burning of coal," adding that "we need to call that out." 

Newsom's speech came on the heels of a bombshell lawsuit filed by the state of California accusing five of the world's largest oil and gas companies of deceiving the public about the risks of fossil fuels.

"It's obvious that the climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis," said Catherine Abreu, founder of Canadian non-profit Destination Zero, which works with climate groups across the country, and who was in New York. "But we haven't heard leaders say it out loud so clearly before."

Even the 27-page Paris Agreement, which was adopted by 196 parties in 2015 as the foundation of international commitments on climate change, doesn't mention coal, oil or gas.

"For over 30 years, the international system that countries set up to help them co-operate on addressing the climate crisis has been ignoring the cause of the climate crisis," said Abreu. "This is a moment for honesty."

As fires, floods and heat waves struck across the globe this summer, scientists quantified links between natural disasters and emissions. For example, the World Weather Attribution initiative, a U.K.-based group, found the changing climate made the weather conditions that drove the Quebec wildfires this spring two times more likely.

WATCH | How Canada's wildfires are intensifying climate change: