Education
Stiell calls for faster climate action, urges clean industry to scale up – EnviroNews
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UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, Simon Stiell, has called for accelerated climate action, urging governments, businesses and investors to move faster from commitments to implementation and scale up solutions capable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and strengthening resilience.
Stiell made the call on Monday, September 21, 2026, while speaking at the Build Clean Now Industry Acceleration Summit in New York City, where he stressed the need for greater international cooperation to address the climate crisis.
He said limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius remained essential, although the world was now guaranteed to temporarily exceed the threshold.
“By doing something about it: Building resilience. And cutting greenhouse gas pollution faster – to bring the temperature rise back below 1.5 degrees as quickly as possible,” Stiell said.
According to him, international cooperation focused on implementing existing climate commitments was critical to reversing the trend.
Stiell noted that UN-convened cooperation and national efforts had already helped reduce projected global temperature rise from more than 4 degrees Celsius to about 2.6 degrees, describing the progress as significant but insufficient to avoid severe climate impacts.
He also highlighted the rapid expansion of renewable energy, citing new data from the International Renewable Energy Agency showing that renewable energy capacity additions reached a record 693 gigawatts last year.
He said the growth of renewables had helped humanity avoid almost half a trillion dollars in fossil fuel costs, while clean energy attracted more than $2 trillion in investment during the year.
Stiell, however, stressed that evidence of progress should not lead to complacency, but should demonstrate that climate action can deliver results and counter disinformation.
“This is the moment to mobilise more. To narrow the gap between pledges and action on the ground,” he said.
He identified implementation as a central focus of the forthcoming COP31 in Türkiye and COP32 in Ethiopia, urging countries, businesses and investors to arrive at COP31 with practical solutions capable of accelerating climate action.
He said COP31 negotiations could support implementation by strengthening institutions, accelerating technology transfer, improving access to higher-quality climate finance and supporting countries pursuing just transitions.
Stiell also highlighted the role of the Action Agenda in bringing together businesses, investors, governments, cities and regions to deliver real-economy climate action.
He urged stakeholders to respond to the COP31 Presidency’s targets, including its goal for electricity to account for 35 per cent of global energy use by 2035.
On climate finance, Stiell called for stronger efforts to meet existing commitments and improve access to funding, saying public and private finance, climate funds and multilateral development banks would all be needed to move the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap toward its $1.3 trillion objective.
He also addressed carbon dioxide removals, saying they would be necessary alongside deep cuts in fossil fuel emissions and the protection of natural carbon sinks.
“Absolutely not as a replacement for transitioning away from all fossil fuels. But in addition to it,” he said.
Stiell further called for greater use of artificial intelligence to address climate challenges, including improving early warning systems and accelerating grid efficiency.
He warned, however, that the growing energy demand of artificial intelligence was increasing emissions from coal, oil and gas, while placing pressure on energy costs and contributing to wider inequalities.
He urged technology companies to establish credible climate targets, improve energy efficiency, disclose their energy and water consumption and power data centres with renewable energy.
According to Stiell, the scale of the climate crisis was increasingly disconnected from the quality and speed of the global response, with climate impacts affecting health, food production, livelihoods, energy costs and national economies.
He said governments seeking to control inflation, strengthen their economies and protect citizens must also address fossil fuel dependence and build resilience to climate impacts.
Stiell also pointed to the growing competitiveness of renewable energy, noting that renewables had overtaken coal as the world’s leading source of electricity last year.
“The shift to clean energy is now irreversible,” he said, urging countries to strengthen climate multilateralism and build on the progress achieved through the Paris Agreement.
“At COP30 every nation agreed – the Paris Agreement is working, and we will make it go further and faster,” Stiell said.
