United Nations — As a result of the worsening climate crisis, extreme weather patterns have disrupted nearly all aspects of human life around the world. With the impacts of fossil fuel reliance being more pronounced than ever before, the United Nations (UN) has implored governments and industries to begin adopting more sustainable, renewable energy sources.
On July 22, UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a speech address: A Moment of Opportunity: Supercharging the Clean Energy Age, in which he relayed the significance and necessity of the energy transition to renewable, clean energy sources. It was a follow-up to to the previous year’s special address, Moment of Truth, in which he declared that the era of fossil fuel usage is nearing its end.
“The fossil fuel age is flailing and failing. We are in the dawn of a new energy era,” said Guterres. “The energy transition is unstoppable, but the transition is not yet fast enough or fair enough…That world is within reach, but it won’t happen on its own.”
According to Guterres, it is imperative that global financing for clean energy programs is scaled up to account for wider-scale usage of renewable fuel sources in the place of fossil fuels. Figures from the UN state that funds must increase five-fold by 2030 in order to keep global temperatures below the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit from the Paris Agreement.
Over the past ten years, only one in five clean energy dollars was allocated to emerging economies outside of China, making it difficult for the vast majority of global industries to adapt to renewable energy usage. Additionally, Africa received only 2 percent of the global fund for clean energy investment, despite the continent having 60 percent of the world’s best sources of solar power.
It is crucial to secure additional investments in clean energy as soon as possible as the climate crisis will have disastrous impacts on human health, livelihoods, economies, and the environment if it continues at the same rate of acceleration. Africa’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projects that by 2050, there will be 14.5 million climate-related deaths, equivalent to over 2 billion years of life lost. Additionally, the global economy could see an estimated loss of $12.5 trillion USD by 2050.
Currently, climate change is a leading driver of worldwide food insecurity. Hotter temperatures and extreme weather patterns, such as floods, droughts, and wildfires, disrupt agri-food systems around the world, causing reduced crop yields and significant rates of inflation, pushing average costs of food out of reach for vulnerable communities.
On July 2, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) released a report, Global Drought Hotspots report catalogs severe suffering, economic damage, in which it analyzed the effects of the worst global droughts in recent history. It is estimated that over 90 million people in eastern and southern Africa face extreme hunger as a result of climate-driven droughts. Additionally, women, children, the elderly, farmers, and people with chronic illness are disproportionately affected by climate-driven droughts, with health risks such as cholera infections, acute malnutrition, and waterborne illness running rampant around the world.
“The report shows the deep and widespread impacts of drought in an interconnected world: from its rippling effects on price of basic commodities like rice, sugar and oil from Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean; to disruptions in access to drinking water and food in the Amazon due to low river levels, to tens of millions affected by malnutrition and displacement across Africa, ” said Andrea Meza, UNCCD’s Deputy Executive Secretary. “We must urgently invest in sustainable land and water management, nature-based solutions, adapted crops, and integrated public policies to build our resilience to drought –or face increasing economic shocks, instability and forced migration.”
Additionally, the climate crisis has had a significant negative impact on children’s access to education worldwide. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), children exposed to extreme heat patterns around the world could lose approximately 1.5 years of schooling. This is particularly pronounced in low and middle-income countries, which make up eight out of ten of UNESCO’s list of most climate-affected nations.
Over 1 billion people reside in these high-risk countries. UNESCO states that these nations face numerous climate-related disruptions to learning every year, with schools being closed in about 75 percent of all extreme weather events, affecting approximately 5 million children each time.
Climate-sensitive countries such as those in Asia and Central America are especially vulnerable. In China, hotter temperatures have resulted in fewer average years of schooling, worsened performance on important standardized tests, and lower rates of high school completion and college entrance. In Brazil’s most impoverished regions, students lost about 1 percent of learning per year due to extreme heat exposure.
Despite these impacts, the Secretary-General has expressed hope due to recent global successes in the transition to renewable energy sources. On July 22, the UN released the 2025 edition of its Energy Transition Report: Seizing the Moment of Opportunity. This report underscored the progress that was made since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, as well as areas of priority that must be addressed when facilitating this transition.
Since 2010, the costs of renewable energy sources have been gradually declining, to the point that they have become far more affordable than fossil fuels. It is estimated that 90 percent of renewable energy sources around the world are more affordable than the cheapest nonrenewable ones. Figures from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) show that solar power went from being roughly four times more expensive than renewable energy to 41 percent cheaper and wind energy has become 53 percent cheaper.
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In 2024, approximately $2 trillion USD was invested in clean energy, compared to the $800 billion invested in the fossil fuels industry. This marks a 70 percent increase from investments in clean energy made one decade ago.
It is imperative for governments to incorporate energy-transition goals into national legislations and provide adequate and ethical guidelines that streamline this process. This transition must empower vulnerable communities that have been most affected by the climate crisis, such as women, children, the disabled, and racial minorities. There must also be guidelines in place that ensure a just transition for workers in which they receive social protections.
Additionally, there must be an effort to maximize the outputs of renewable energy sources so that they can replace global fossil fuels systems entirely. The UN is hopeful that there will be universal access to clean energy by 2030 and that major tech firms will be 100 percent powered by renewable sources by the same year.
“This is not just a shift in power. It is a shift in possibility,” said Guterres. “Of course, the fossil fuel lobby will try, and we know the lengths to which they will go. But, I have never been more confident that they will fail because we have passed the point of no return.”
IPS UN Bureau Report