Remarks by H.E. Annalena Baerbock
President of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly
at the Interactive Dialogue:
Accelerating the Global Energy Transition: Advancing Renewables, Energy Efficiency and International Cooperation
24 July 2026
[As Delivered]
The good thing about this morning is that we don¡¯t have to take very long to explain why we are here.
We are all here because we all know that the climate crisis is one of the greatest threats to human security.
And therefore we decided, by consensus, as Member States, 10 years ago, to counter it together:
- By achieving global net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions.
- By scaling up renewable energy.
- And by ensuring energy access for all, while supporting a just transition that advances the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
It seems like decades ago. Yet it was only in 2015.
And the good thing is, in between these years, so much has happened.
However, we also all know that this shared aspiration has not yet resulted in the speed and coordination we need, as it actually could, given the modern forms of technology.
Still too much is done in silos.
Too often, finance does not flow to where it is most needed.
In fact, I recall during my very first here days as President of the General Assembly, when I had the honour of receiving the Prime Minister of a Small Island Developing State which was facing challenges in securing financing for large wind turbines.
And she was saying: ¡®We only need five. We talked to so many other Member States. Can you just organize the turbines?¡¯
Because they would have simply ensured that their whole energy system and their whole electricity grid would be be hundred percent renewable.
But this lack of matching is what I think we have to address mostly.
Because the answers are all there. But the matching is missing.
Because it is not that there is a lack of finance. Rather there is a failure to match finance with projects and infrastructure investments, because sometimes these countries are even told that the projects are too small to attract big investors.
So much of this is because many of the most important financial discussions take place through separate, fragmented processes, in which, for instance, 35 finance ministers working through the COP30 Circle of Finance Ministers may agree on solutions.
But those discussions are not necessarily reflected here when we consider the Sevilla Commitment, or when Member States engage in DC separately with international financial institutions.
And therefore, I am grateful that today:
The Executive Secretary of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵFCCC;
The Director-General of IRENA;
The Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Action and Just Transition;
And all of you,
Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates,
…are here with us today.
Because we want to bring the topic of clean energy security to the heart of multilateralism, and to increase coordination across institutions, processes and centers of decision-making¡exactly here also at the GA.
That principle runs through the advisory opinion of the ICJ on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change, requested by the General Assembly through resolution 77/276, in which the Court affirmed that States have an obligation to cooperate continuously and meaningfully in addressing climate change.
And we heard it also during the recent High-level Political Forum: unless we bring our efforts together, we will not deliver the energy transition required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
And the UAE Climate Consensus translated that understanding into a clear global agenda:
- To triple renewable energy capacity.
- To double the global average annual rate of energy-efficiency improvements by 2030.
- And to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner.
And here is where the word ¡°equitable¡± is crystal clear.
Fairness is what will determine whether the transition, in the spirit of the 2030 Agenda, truly leaves no one behind.
For without reliable access to energy and electricity, entire communities will be unable do many things others take for granted: opening a bank account, renting a home or benefiting from digital advances in health and education, let alone from AI.
Without electricity, none of them will be possible in the future.
Put simply, without delivering on the promise of the UAE Climate Consensus, we will not deliver on the 2030 Agenda.
The good news is that we already know what needs to be done, including the investment in:
- Infrastructure.
- Storage.
- Stronger grids.
The challenge is implementation.
The challenge is the matching of finance with viable projects ¨C like for the small island states which just need a couple of wind turbines.
Our task is to learn from what works, adapt it to different national circumstances and scale it up.
Be it from frontrunners such as Kenya, where nearly 90 per cent of electricity generation comes from renewable sources; Chile, where renewables generated two-thirds of the country¡¯s electricity in 2025; or the big cities such as Buenos Aires, which, by 2019, had converted its entire public street-lighting network to energy-efficient LED technology.
And we all know these examples differ in geography, scale and national circumstances, but they all demonstrate that workable models already exist, provided we scale up finance.
Unfortunately, for many countries, especially least developed countries, financing remains the biggest obstacle.
And this is where international cooperation is so essential.
And again, this is sometimes where citizens in our national contexts no longer understand politics at the international level. If people see that things are already working, including in the private sector, then they naturally ask: why is the public sector not capable of implementing them?
And what we see, again, in cooperation on finance is, in my view, incredible:
- Be it in Burkina Faso, where a concessional loan and reimbursable grant from the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa is already helping to finance an 18-megawatt solar power plant alongside other development financing;
- Or, as we have just learned, in Ecuador, where they are already implementing debt-for-nature swaps, which we have discussed for so many years. Backed by public and private partners, these swaps are helping to protect the Gal¨¢pagos and the Amazon and to drive climate action.
This demonstrates that targeted public and concessional finance, combined with multistakeholder cooperation among multilateral development banks, climate funds, international financial institutions, bilateral partners and private investors, can turn plans into projects and attract investment. And we have to ensure that our Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ, that this place is the base for all of this.
And to those who argue that we are facing headwinds in climate policy, obviously we are; we have all felt them.
But we should recall the period before 2015, when we saw one climate conference after another end in failure.
Then, in Paris, the Agreement was adopted.
Even after its adoption, many sceptics argued that a transition to renewable energy would be completely unrealistic.
I remember that, when I even mentioned phasing out coal, I was almost expelled from politics.
And that was only 10 years ago.
Yet now many countries are showing how you can do a just transition, of phasing out of fossil energy.
And we have proven altogether the skeptics wrong.
In 2025 alone, renewables accounted for over 85 per cent of all new power capacity worldwide.
This year, some 2.2 trillion dollars is expected to flow into clean energy, almost twice the amount invested in fossil fuels.
And these are not just investments in climate.
We also know they are investments in:
- Peace and security,
- in energy security
- and in resilient economies.
For as recent crises and supply-chain disruptions near the Strait of Hormuz, and before in the Black Sea, demonstrate, dependence on volatile fossil-fuel markets leaves countries vulnerable to shortages, geopolitical pressure and sudden price shocks¡as we have discussed extensively here in the General Assembly, in February and in March.
So, I invite you to keep this in mind as you discuss over the next few hours how we can scale up what is already working and deliver on the promises of the Paris Agreement and the UAE Consensus for everyone.
And if we don¡¯t want to call it climate security, then we can call it energy security, or we call it protection of our peace.
Because when the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, it referred not only to security, but also to justice, particularly with respect to Africa.
And I think it is important to remember, and the experts behind me probably know the exact line and paragraph, that renewable energy was mentioned only once across the two documents adopted in 2015.
It was mentioned specifically in relation to Africa and the continent¡¯s urgent need to achieve universal access to electricity.
Yet today – and this is really something we have to address – we face the cynical situation that in the decade since, every region other than Africa has benefited far more extensively from the renewable energy transition.
While China, the United States and the European Union accounted for almost 80 per cent of new renewable capacity worldwide in 2025, Africa accounted for just 1.6 per cent!
So without a major expansion of renewable energy across Africa, we will not deliver sustainable development for the continent. And we will also not deliver on the promise we made in 2015 in Paris.
Nor will we be able to claim that the global transition is just and equitable for all.
So today, the core of our dialogue is to ask one concrete and practical question: how can we deliver on our promise and live up to our responsibilities?
But not only in theory, but through concrete practices.
Where are the gaps?
For example, with the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵFCCC discussions in Bel¨¦m, and then those coming up in T¨¹rkiye: are different discussions taking place there from those we are having here?
Or is IRENA saying that it is already doing all of this, but unfortunately, we are not implementing it here in the General Assembly?
Because we have to reach every region.
We have to ensure that it works for every economy, and that it improves the lives of all the people it is meant to serve.
In this regard, I thank you for being here.
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