UN Chief calls for clean energy transition key to global economy – SABC News

“Countries that cling to fossil fuels are not protecting their economies – they are sabotaging them,” according to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

Guterres delivered a special address on climate change titled “A Moment of Opportunity: Supercharging the Clean Energy Age” at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

The UN Chief argued that a renewable future is fundamentally about energy security and is a key peg to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, which are currently off track in terms of implementation.

Guterres told his audience that the world was on the cusp of a new era – one where fossil fuels were running out of road and where the sun was rising on a clean energy age.

“Just follow the money. $2 trillion went into clean energy last year – that’s $800 billion more than fossil fuels, and up almost 70% in ten years. And new data released today 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. It is a shift in possibility.”

Countries that cling to fossil fuels are sabotaging their economies.

Driving up costs, undermining competitiveness, locking-in stranded assets.

They are missing the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century: the renewable energy revolution. pic.twitter.com/EVKhxJU2u1

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) July 22, 2025

His speech coincided with the release of a special report titled “Seizing the Moment of Opportunity,” which highlights the benefits and actions needed to accelerate a just transition globally, among the benefits, market economics.

Energy systems 

“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%. The United States, 6%. 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. Even Texas – the heart of the American fossil fuel industry – now leads the US in renewables. Why? Because it makes economic sense.”

The Secretary-General urged action in six opportunity areas: by using national climate plans to go all-out on the energy transition, urging clarity and certainty and leadership from G20 countries; building energy systems of the 21st Century with investments in the right infrastructure; meeting the world’s surging energy demand sustainably including for energy-hungry data centres on which an AI future depends; a just energy transition – arguing for a clean energy era that must deliver equity, dignity and opportunity for all; using trade and investment to support climate policy; while unleashing the full force of finance and driving investment to markets with massive potential.

“Africa is home to 60% of the world’s best solar resources. But it received just 2% of global clean energy investment last year. 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 ratings 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.”

Making the case for the reforms that would drive a future that is not only green but just.

“The clean energy future is no longer a promise. It’s a fact. No government. No industry. 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.”

In a question and answer session following his remarks, the SG was asked why he chose to the use this platform to focus on climate change rather than other crises likes wars and conflicts that may feel more immediate or urgent – his response that this was the right moment for a new offensive in bringing the urgency of climate change to the global public as governments now take decisions that will determine their national climate plans or NDCs that are to be presented at the UN Climate Change Conference or COP30 in Brazil in November this year – in an effort to ensure that those NDCs have the right measures to make COP30 the success this planet needs it to be.

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