A critical meeting on climate change later this year in Scotland is at risk of failure, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has said, due to mistrust between developed and developing countries and a lack of ambitious goals among some emerging economies.

The U.N. COP26 conference in Glasgow aims to wring much more ambitious climate action and the money to go with it from participants around the globe. Scientists said last month that global warming is dangerously close to spiraling out of control.

"I believe that we are at risk of not having a success in COP26," Guterres said in an interview at U.N. headquarters in New York on Wednesday. "There is still a level of mistrust — between north and south, developed and developing countries — that needs to be overcome."