International

UN Climate Chief: Countries Staying Committed to Climate Plans

Countries are staying committed to their national climate plans and looking to lead the clean energy transition.

Published

1 year ago

February 13, 2025

Jasmin Brown

Countries are staying committed to their national climate plans and looking to lead the clean energy transition.

That’s according to a top UN climate chief who says the commitment comes as the United States makes plans to exit the Paris Climate Agreement.

Executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change Simon Stiell laying out priorities in his first press conference for the year.

He’s encouraging countries to prepare stronger national climate plans this year.

Stiell says while he’s optimistic, there’s still a lot of work to do.

“Ten years on from Paris, we won’t have delivered on all our commitments, but that is exactly why we need to look at how we are engaging our highest-level participants. How we make space for leaders to do concrete deals that deliver for their citizens and economies now. With fewer high-level speeches repackaging old pledges already made but nowhere near fulfilled,” Stiell said.

Stiell made the speech earlier this week in Brazil’s capital alongside Cop30 President Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago.

The push comes after U.S. President Donald Trump said he will remove the world’s second-biggest greenhouse gas emitter from the Paris Agreement.

Even so, Stiell said the world has mobilized around $2 trillion in climate finance.

He called on countries to increase the amount of climate finance they agreed to target at last year’s climate summit of $300 billion annually by 2035.