BERLIN (Xinhua): UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said on Tuesday that the world is facing the threat of fossil-fuel-driven stagflation and that climate cooperation is key to fending off the twin crises of global heating and fossil-fuel cost chaos.
Speaking at the opening of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, Stiell said the latest war in the Middle East has "further locked-in much higher fossil fuel costs for months and likely years to come, delivering a gut-punch to every nation and billions of households."
He warned that fossil-fuel-driven stagflation "is now stalking economies - driving up prices, driving down growth, pushing budgets deeper into quagmires of debt, and stripping away governments' policy options and autonomy."
"The need to accelerate action has never been clearer," he added.
Stiell said negotiations remain a critical tool and have delivered landmark commitments, including those made at the first global stocktake at COP28. "Now, in this era of implementation, we must turn them into projects on the ground," he said, so that by the second global stocktake at COP33, countries will be on track to meet those commitments.
He also noted the importance of clean energy, saying that it offers security and affordability while returning sovereignty to nations and their peoples.
On implementation, he said the Action Agenda, "this crucial fast-lane of the Paris Agreement," has mobilised trillions of dollars within the real economy and pushed the clean energy transition to a point where it "is now irreversible."
Stiell called for elevating the Action Agenda to share centre stage with negotiations to help harness and accelerate real-economy momentum and deliver on National Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions.
He also urged that the full power of the Action Agenda be unleashed worldwide, with "coalitions of the willing" leading the way, governments driving progress and encouraging investment between COPs, and far more finance flowing into developing countries.
"That means looking to where the urgency is greatest, and our impact can be strongest and fastest," he said, pointing to areas such as grid modernisation, methane reduction, early warning systems, sustainable cities, climate-resilient food supplies, and cutting waste. -- Xinhua
