United Nations Secretary-General urges rapid, equitable shift to clean electrification

The United Nations Secretary-General told climate leaders at a summit that the world faces "two interconnected crises": accelerating climate chaos pushing beyond 1.5°C and a severe energy upheaval that has driven up prices and inflation.

"These two crises share one common cause, fossil fuels," the United Nations Secretary-General said, urging an urgent shift to clean electrification powered by renewables. He said renewables are now the "cheapest, fastest, and most scalable source of new electricity in most of the world," and added that last year "over 90% of new renewable power projects delivered clean electricity at a lower cost than fossil fuels."

The Secretary-General singled out three fronts for action. First, he said, countries must build "21st century energy systems," including modern, resilient, interconnected grids and storage, or "the transition will stall." Citing the International Energy Agency, he said the world will need to add or refurbish more than 80 million kilometers of grids by 2040 and that annual global investment in grids and flexibility must reach about $670 billion by 2030.

Second, he called for mobilizing finance at scale. He warned that developing countries—home to two-thirds of the global population—are not receiving sufficient clean-energy investment: "In the last decade, only one in every five clean energy dollars went to emerging and developing countries outside China," he said, and Africa receives just 2% of global clean energy investment despite having 60% of the world's best solar resources. To meet net-zero goals, he said, annual clean-energy investment in those countries must rise more than fivefold and reach $2 trillion by 2035.

Third, the Secretary-General urged stronger international cooperation, including trade and supply-chain policies. He said fragmentation and protectionism would slow progress and deepen inequalities, and he called for open, resilient, and diversified supply chains to accelerate deployment.

Addressing finance specifically, he urged governments, multilateral development banks, and the private sector to increase lending and modernize how risk is calculated. "We need innovative financial solutions that reduce genuine risk ... and we need to drastically increase the lending capacity of multilateral development banks," he said, calling on credit-rating agencies and investors to "modernize the way they calculate risk." He also noted that global investment in battery storage is expected to exceed $100 billion in 2026.

The Secretary-General emphasized equity in mineral value chains, saying the UN task force on critical energy transition minerals is working with resource-rich developing countries to embed justice and to avoid "extraction without development." He closed by urging attendees to "seize this moment for energy security, economic stability, and a liveable future for all."