Story By: Dennis Ato Keelson
In a major speech marking the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, the UN Climate Change, Executive Secretary, Simon Stiell, has declared that global cooperation has bent the curve of future heating from a catastrophic 5 degrees to below 3°C, calling it “proof that climate cooperation works.”
Speaking in Belém, Brazil, Stiell framed the moment as a critical juncture, pointing to a booming clean energy revolution where last year, two trillion dollars flowed into renewables—twice as much as into fossil fuels—and ninety per cent of new power capacity worldwide was renewable. He commended nations for submitting more credible, whole-of-economy climate plans that are stronger linked to adaptation and just transitions.
Yet, he warned that this progress was still perilous and not fast enough, identifying climate finance as the essential spark needed to accelerate action.
“Plans without finance cannot reach their full potential,” he stated, calling finance “the great accelerator.”
He pointed to the Baku to Belém Roadmap, which charts a path to scale climate finance for developing nations from $300 billion a year to $1.3 trillion by 2035, insisting this must become reality.
Steil framed this not as charity, but as a shared investment in global stability and prosperity that yields multiple dividends: jobs, cleaner air, better health, and stronger energy security. To unlock this transformation, Stiell argued that finance must be “scaled up, sped up, and spread out—reaching every nation, fast, fair, and in full.” With history set to judge what was achieved rather than what was intended, he urged nations to double down on international cooperation, their “not-so-secret weapon,” to make the Paris framework work faster and fairer for everyone, everywhere.
