Source: United Nations (video statements)
Secretary-General António Guterres said, “The age of clean electrification is here. The question is whether we can build the grids and storage, mobilize the investment, and deliver the infrastructure at the speed and scale required.”
António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, made the appeal in remarks to the inaugural Global Energy Transition and Electrification Summit, held in London alongside London Climate Action Week.
Guterres told the summit the world is facing two interconnected crises: accelerating climate chaos pushing the planet past the 1.5-degree Celsius limit, and the most severe energy upheaval in years, driving up prices and straining economies. Both crises, he said, share one cause – fossil fuels, which still account for around 80 per cent of global energy use.
Three-quarters of the world’s people live in countries dependent on imported fossil fuels, he added, leaving them reliant on energy “they do not control,” at prices “they cannot predict.”
Renewables, however, are now the cheapest, fastest and most scalable source of new electricity in most of the world, the Secretary-General noted. More than 90 per cent of new renewable power projects delivered electricity at a lower cost than fossil fuels last year, he said, and wind and solar are leading all new electricity demand growth worldwide.