TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres declared that the world is on the cusp of a new era, with clean energy on the rise, in a special address on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. Speaking in New York, Guterres said that “clean energy future is no longer a promise, it’s a fact”.
According to Guterres, the fossil fuel age is “flailing and failing,” adding that the economics of renewable energy had passed a tipping point, making the clean energy transition “unstoppable.”
Citing new data from the International Renewable Energy (IRENA), the UN chief lauded how far the world has come since the Paris Agreement sparked a clean energy revolution. Solar costs 41 percent cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil fuel alternative, and onshore wind generation is less than half the price of fossil fuels.
“This is not just a shift in power. It is a shift in possibility,” he said, as quoted from a release received by Tempo on Tuesday.
The Unstoppable Clean Energy
Guterres urged G20 nations—responsible for 80 percent of emissions—to lead in locking ambition into the next round of national climate plans, or NDCs, due in September. The targets, he said, must “double energy efficiency and triple renewables capacity by 2030” while accelerating “the transition away from fossil fuels.”
Guterres said it made economic sense for countries to use those plans to funnel support into low-carbon energy and reduce the billions in subsidies that still go to fossil fuels.
“This transformation is fundamentally about energy security and people’s security. It’s about smart economics,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said, continued investment in fossil fuels will drive up costs and create stranded assets in the long term. Dependence on fossil fuels will leave economies at risk of price shocks during geopolitical turmoil, citing the energy prices in Europe following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"Countries that cling to fossil fuels are not protecting their economies; they are sabotaging them," he added. “The greatest threat to energy security today is fossil fuels."
Concerning the rapid growth of AI, Guterres called on big technology companies to commit to sourcing 100% of their electricity demands from low-carbon generation by 2030.
Six Opportunity Areas
Guterres mapped six "opportunity areas" to speed the transition. These are the ambitious NDCs, modern grids and storage, meeting soaring demand sustainably, a just transition for workers and communities, trade reforms to broaden cleantech supply chains, and mobilizing finance to emerging markets.
According to him, financing is the choke point. Africa, as the home of 60% of the world's best solar resources, received just 2% of the global clean energy funding in 2024.
Meanwhile, only one in every five clean energy investments went to developing economies outside China in the last ten years.
Guterres called for global finance reform and stronger multilateral development banks and debt relief. "That world is within reach. But it won’t happen on its own. Not fast enough. Not fair enough. It is up to us…This is our moment of opportunity.”
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