Surging investment in clean energy around the globe and plunging costs for solar and wind power generation are combining to create an energy transition that is “unstoppable,” UN Secretary‑General António Guterres said this week in a special address at the organization’s headquarters in New York.
“The fossil fuel age is flailing and failing. We are in the dawn of a new energy era,” he said. “That world is within reach, but it won’t happen on its own. Not fast enough. Not fair enough. It is up to us. This is our moment of opportunity.”
Guterres urged governments to file sweeping new climate plans before November’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil. He called on the G20 countries, which are responsible for 80 percent of emissions, to submit new plans aligned with the 1.5 degree Celsius limit and present them at a high‑level event in September.
Targets, he added, must “double energy efficiency and triple renewables capacity by 2030” while accelerating “the transition away from fossil fuels.”
Guterres underscored that a clean energy future “is no longer a promise, it is a fact.” No government, no industry and no special interest can stop it.
“Of course, the fossil fuel lobby will try, and we know the lengths to which they will go. But, I have never been more confident that they will fail because we have passed the point of no return.”
“Just follow the money,” Guterres said, noting that $2 trillion flowed into clean energy last year, $800 billion more than fossil fuels and up almost 70 percent in a decade.
The cost of renewables plunges
He cited new data from the International Renewable Energy Agency showing solar, once four times costlier, is now 41 per cent cheaper than fossil fuels. Similarly, offshore wind is 53 percent cheaper, with more than 90 percent of new renewables worldwide beating the cheapest new fossil alternative.
“This is not just a shift in power. It is a shift in possibility,” he said.
Renewables nearly match fossil fuels in global installed power capacity, and “almost all the new power capacity built” last year came from renewables, he said, with every continent adding more clean power than fossil fuels.
The Secretary-General also highlighted the geopolitical risks of fossil fuel dependence.
“The greatest threat to energy security today is fossil fuels,” he said, citing price shocks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “There are no price spikes for sunlight, no embargoes on wind. Renewables mean real energy security, real energy sovereignty and real freedom from fossil-fuel volatility.”
Six opportunity areas
Guterres mapped six “opportunity areas” to speed the renewable-energy transition:
- Ambitious new climate plans from governments
- Modern grids and storage
- Meeting soaring demand sustainably
- A just transition for workers and communities
- Trade reforms to broaden clean‑tech supply chains
- Mobilizing finance to emerging markets
Financing, however, is the choke point. Africa, home to 60 percent of the world’s best solar resources, received just 2 per cent of global clean energy investment last year, he said.
Only one in five clean energy dollars over the past decade went to emerging and developing economies outside China. Flows must rise more than five-fold by 2030 to keep the 1.5-degree limit alive and deliver universal access, he said.
Guterres urged reform of global finance, stronger multilateral development banks and debt relief, including debt‑for‑climate swaps.
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