UN Secretary-General: A moment of opportunity

Just and inclusive energy transition

Today, we are releasing a special report – Seizing the moment of opportunity: Supercharging the new energy era of renewables, efficiency, and electrification – with the support of UN agencies and partners, the International Energy Agency, the IMF, IRENA, the OECD and the World Bank. The report shows how far we have come in the decades since the Paris Agreement sparked a clean energy revolution, highlighting the vast benefits and actions needed to accelerate a just transition globally.

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A world dominated by headlines of trouble, conflict, and climate chaos, rising human suffering, and growing geopolitical divides. But amidst the turmoil, another story is being written, and its implications will be profound.

Throughout history, energy has shaped humankind's destiny, from mastering fire to harnessing steam to splitting the atom. Now, we are on the cusp of a new era. Fossil fuels are running out of roads, and the Sun is rising on a clean energy age.

Two trillion US dollars went into clean energy last year. That's 800 billion more than fossil fuels, and up almost 70% in 10 years. New data released from the International Renewable Energy Agency shows that solar, not so long ago four times the cost of fossil fuels, is now 41% cheaper. Offshore wind, 53%. And over 90% of new renewables worldwide produced electricity for less than the cheapest new fossil fuel alternative.

This is not just a shift in power. This is a shift in possibility.

In repairing our relations with the climate, the carbon emissions already saved by solar and wind globally are almost equivalent to what the whole European Union produces in a year.

But this transformation is fundamentally about energy security and people security, and it's about smart economics. It's about decent jobs, public health, advancing the sustainable development goals, and delivering clean and affordable energy to everyone, everywhere.

Clean energy now drives global prosperity

Renewables already nearly match fossil fuels in global installed power capacity. And that's just the beginning. The future of clean energy is no longer a promise; it's a fact. No government, no industry, no special interest can stop it. 

There are powerful reasons. First, market economics. For decades, emissions and economic growth rose together. In many advanced economies, emissions have peaked, but growth continues. In 2023 alone, clean energy sectors drove 10% of global GDP growth. In India, 5%; in the United States, 6%; in China, a leader in the energy transition, 20%; and in the European Union, nearly 33%. And clean energy sector jobs now outnumber fossil fuel jobs, employing almost 35 million people worldwide. 

Yet fossil fuels still enjoy a 9 to 1 advantage in consumption subsidies globally, a clear market distortion. And to that, the unaccounted costs of climate damage to people and planets and distortion are even greater. Countries that cling to fossil fuels are not protecting their economies; they are sabotaging them, driving up costs, undermining competitiveness, locking in stranded assets, and missing the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century.

Moreover, renewables are here to stay because they are the foundation of energy security and sovereignty. To be clear, the greatest threat to energy security today is the impossible. They leave economies and people at the mercy of price shocks, supply disruptions, and geopolitical turmoil. Oil and gas prices soared. Electricity and food bills followed. In 2022, every household around the world saw energy costs jump 20%. Modern and competitive economies need stable, affordable energy. And renewables offer both.

There are no price spikes for sunlight and no embargoes on winds. Renewables can put power literally and figuratively in the hands of people and governments. And almost every nation has enough sun, wind, or water to become energy self-sufficient.

Renewables mean real energy security, sovereignty, and freedom from fossil fuel volatility. Solar and wind can be deployed faster, cheaper, and more flexibly than fossil fuels ever could. 

This is a game changer for the hundreds of millions of people still living without electricity, most of them in Africa, a continent bursting with renewable potential. By 2040, Africa could generate 10 times more electricity than it needs entirely from renewables.

We are already seeing small-scale and off-grid renewable technologies lighting homes and powering schools and businesses in remote areas. In places like Pakistan, for example, people's power is fueling a solar surge. Consumers are driving the clean energy boom.

The energy transition is unstoppable, but it is not yet fast enough or fair enough. OECD countries and China account for 80% of renewable power capacity installed worldwide. Brazil and India make up nearly 10%, and Africa just 1.5%.

Meanwhile, the climate crisis is laying waste to lives and livelihoods. Climate disasters in small island states have wiped out over 100% of GDP. In the United States, insurance premiums are pushing through the roof. The 1.5-degree limit is in unprecedented peril.

To keep it within reach, we must drastically speed up emissions reductions and the reach of the clean energy transition. With manufacturing capacity racing, prices plummeting, and COP 30 fast approaching, this is our moment of opportunity, and we must seize it.

Defining the moment of opportunity

First, new national climate plans should be used to go all out on the energy transition. Too often, governments send mixed messages: bold renewable targets one day, new fossil fuel subsidies and expansions the next. The next national climate plans, or NDCs, are due in a matter of months. They must bring clarity and certainty.

The G20 countries must lead. They produce 80% of global emissions. The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities must apply, but every country must do more. They must submit new NDC plans by November at the end of COP30 in Brazil. 

These must cover all emissions across the entire economy, align with the 1.5-degree limit, integrate energy, climate, and sustainable development priorities into one coherent vision, and deliver on global promises to double energy efficiency and triple renewables capacity by 2030 and accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.

Long-term roadmaps must support these plans for a just transition to net-zero energy systems in line with global Net Zero by 2050. They must be underpinned by policies that show that the green energy future is not only inevitable but also investable.

Policies that create clear regulations and a pipeline of projects. That enhances public-private partnerships and locks in capital and innovation. That put a meaningful price on carbon, and that ends subsidies and international public finance for fossil fuels as promised.

Second, it is our moment of opportunity to build the energy systems of the 21st century. The technology is moving ahead. In just 15 years, the cost of battery storage and electricity grids has dropped over 90%. However, the issue is that every dollar invested in renewable power, just 60 cents go to grids and storage – the ratio should be one to one. We are building renewable power, but not connecting it fast enough. 

We must act now and invest in the backbone of a clean energy future: modern, flexible, and digital grids, including regional integration, a massive scale-up of energy storage, and charging networks to power the electric vehicle revolution.

On the other hand, we need energy efficiency and electrification across buildings, transport, and industry. That is how we unlock renewables' full promise and build energy systems that are clean, secure, and fit for the future.

Third, this is our moment of opportunity to meet the world's surging energy demands sustainably. More people are plugging in, more seedlings are eating up with soaring demand for power, and more technologies, from AI to digital finance, are devouring electricity.

Governments must aim to meet all new electricity demands with renewables. AI can boost efficiency, innovation, and resilience in energy systems, and we must profit from it. But it is also energy-hungry. A typical artificial intelligence data center uses as much electricity as 100,000 homes, and the largest ones will soon use 20 times that.

I call on every major tech firm to power all data centers with 100% renewables by 2030. Along with other industries, they must use water sustainably in cooling systems. The future is being built in the cloud. It must be powered by the sun, the wind, and the promise of a better world.

Fourth, this is the moment of opportunity for a just energy transition. The clean energy that we must deliver must also deliver equity, dignity, and opportunity for all.

That means governments leading a just transition, with support, education, and training for fossil coal workers, young people, women, Indigenous peoples, and others so that they can strive in the new energy economy. It also means stronger social protection so no one is left behind. And it means international cooperation to help low-income countries that are highly dependent on fossil fuels and struggling to make the shift.

But justice doesn't stop here. The critical minerals that power the clean energy revolution are often found in long-exploited countries. Today, we see history repeating: Communities are mistreated, rights are trampled, environments are trashed, nations are stuck at the bottom of value chains while others reap rewards, and the extracted models dig deeper holes of inequality and harm.

This must end. European countries can play a major role in diversifying their supply of goods. The UN Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals has shown the way forward, with a path grounded in human rights, justice, and equity.

I call on governments, businesses, and civil society to collaborate with us to deliver their recommendations. Let's build a future that is not only green but just, not only fast but fair, not only transformative but inclusive.

Fifth, we have a moment of opportunity to use trade and investment to supercharge the energy transition. Clean energy needs more than ambition. It needs access to technologies, materials, and manufacturing. But these are concentrated in just a few countries, and global trade is fragmented. Trade policy must support climate policy.

Countries committed to the new energy era must come together to ensure that trade and investment drive it forward by building diverse, secure, and resilient supply chains, cutting tariffs on clean energy goods, unlocking investment and trade, including through South-South cooperation, and modernizing outdated investment treaties started with investor-state dispute settlement provisions.

Today, fossil fuel interests are weaponizing these provisions to delay the transition, particularly in several developing countries. Reform is urgent.

The race for the new must not be a race for the few. It must be a relay, shared, inclusive and resilient. Let's make trade a tool for transformation.

Sixth and finally, this is our moment of opportunity to unleash the full force of finance, driving investment to markets with massive potential. Despite soaring demand and vast renewables potential, developing countries are being locked out of the energy transition.

Africa is home to 60% of the world's best solar resources, but it received just 2% of global clean energy investments last year. Zoom out, and the picture is just as stark. In the last decade, only 1 in every 5 clean energy dollars went to emerging and developing countries outside China.

To keep the 1.5-degree limit alive and deliver universal energy access, annual clean energy investment in those countries must rise more than fivefold by 2030.

That demands bold national policies and concrete international action to reform the global financial architecture, drastically increase the lending capacity of multilateral development banks, making them bigger, bolder, and better able to leverage massive amounts of private finance at reasonable cost, take effective action on debt relief, and scale up proven tools like debt-for-climate swaps.

Today, developing countries pay outlandish sums for both debt and equity financing, in part because of outdated risk models, bias, and broken assumptions that boost the cost of capital. Credit-trading agencies and investors must modernize.

We need a new approach to risk that reflects the promise of clean energy, the rising cost of climate chaos, and the danger of stranded fossil fuel assets. I urge parties to unite to solve the complex challenges facing some developing countries in the energy transition, such as early retirement of coal plants.

The fossil fuel age is flailing and failing. We are at the dawn of a new energy era—an era where cheap, clean, abundant energy powers a world rich in economic opportunity. Where nations have the security of energy autonomy, and the gift of power is a gift for all.

That world is within reach. But it won't happen on its own—not fast enough, not fair enough. It is up to us. We have the tools to power humanity's future. Let's make the most of them.

This is our moment of opportunity!