By Awyetu Asabe Hope
United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary, Simon Stiell, has urged governments, businesses, investors, cities and civil society to move from climate commitments to concrete projects and investments that deliver benefits to communities.
Stiell made the call on Wednesday, in a video message during the high-level opening of the fourth UNFCCC Climate Week in Baku, Azerbaijan.
He said Baku, which hosted COP29 in 2024, remained an important reference point for climate cooperation, particularly on finance, but stressed the need to shift from promises to implementation.
“At COP29, countries agreed a new global climate finance goal of $300 billion a year by 2035 and called on all actors to work together to scale up climate finance from public and private sources to at least $1.3 trillion a year by 2035,” Stiell said.
He said the Baku to Belém Roadmap had helped advance efforts to turn those commitments into practical measures and direct finance to where it was most needed.
Stiell warned that communities and economies were increasingly exposed to heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and food insecurity, stressing that “every fraction of a degree matters.”
He cited clean-energy investment of more than $2 trillion annually and the growing dominance of renewable energy as evidence that the global energy transition was accelerating.
“The transition to clean energy is irreversible,” he said.
Stiell identified electrification, energy storage, zero waste, food security, methane reduction, resilient cities and climate-related health risks as key areas requiring urgent action.
He urged participants to use Climate Week to demonstrate that the world was ready to turn climate commitments into tangible results.
“Let us use these days well – moving decisively towards implementation; and once again in Baku showing that the world chooses delivery over delay,” he said.
