STAFF REPORTER
Belém, Brazil — UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell has warned governments that “the time for performative diplomacy has now passed,” urging ministers to accelerate negotiations as COP30 entered its high-level segment on Monday.
Addressing leaders and ministers in Belém, Stiell said the conference had reached its decisive moment, with negotiations “mid-stride” and far from the pace required to confront escalating climate threats.
“We are no longer talking about what this COP must do – we are doing it. But we must strive for more,” he said, praising the “spirit of goodwill” shown during the first week but stressing that goodwill alone was not enough. “The spirit is there, but the speed is not.”
Stiell highlighted significant progress under the Action Agenda, noting that countries had “mustered a trillion-dollar charge into clean energy and grids” in just seven days, rallied behind a plan to quadruple sustainable fuels and opened doors to new green industry and adaptation investments.
“These steps reflect an irrefutable fact driven by this process: a new economy is rising, faster than forecasts,” he said. He pointed to the more than US$2.2 trillion invested in renewables last year — “more than the GDP of over 180 countries” — as evidence of real-world momentum.
But he warned that the surge in clean energy investment had not been matched by breakthroughs at the negotiating tables. “Much will depend on bringing our process closer to the real economy,” he said, urging ministers to confront difficult issues head-on and avoid late-night brinkmanship. “When these issues get pushed deep into extra time, everybody loses.”
With climate disasters “wrecking millions of lives and hammering every economy,” Stiell said negotiators could not afford tactical delays or obstruction. “I said we needed an acceleration in the Amazon and that applies equally to how we all go about our collective work here.”
He told ministers that the world was watching for proof that climate cooperation could hold in a “fractured world,” adding: “Now’s the time to roll up our sleeves, come together and get the job done.”
“The secretariat will be with you every single step of the way,” he said in closing.