Advertisements for fossil fuel companies should be banned to prevent “climate hell”, the head of the UN has said.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres branded oil and gas companies the “godfathers of climate chaos” and called for urgent action to cut emissions more quickly.

In a special address at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Guterres said the fossil fuel industry should face an advertising ban, similar to those rolled out against tobacco.

He also called on media and Big Tech firms to stop accepting ads from highly polluting companies.

“Many in the fossil fuel industry have shamelessly greenwashed, even as they have sought to delay climate action – with lobbying, legal threats, and massive ad campaigns,” Guterres said.

The UN has previously railed against the fossil fuel industry, though the call for a clampdown on advertising is the strongest rhetoric to date.

Regulators in the UK and EU have pledged to crack down on misleading environmental claims and so-called “greenwashing”, but have not implemented a complete ban. In Australia, corporate regulator ASIC has vowed to crack down on greenwashing, which it described as “the practice of misrepresenting the extent to which a financial product or investment strategy is environmentally friendly, sustainable or ethical”.

‘The godfathers of climate chaos rake in record profits and feast off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies.’

UN Secretary General António Guterres

The UN chief’s comments came as figures from the EU’s climate change monitoring service confirmed that global temperatures stood at record highs for each of the past 12 months.