Dar es Salaam. Ten years after the historic Paris Agreement was adopted, global leaders are warning that despite notable climate progress, the world is failing to curb the rising loss and damage already devastating vulnerable communities.
Speaking in Belém, Brazil, on Friday, November 7, 2025, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the clean-energy transition is advancing “at lightning speed”, but not fast enough to protect countries from worsening climate-related destruction.
“Even if new national commitments are fully implemented, the world is still heading for clearly more than 2 degrees of warming. That means more floods, more heat, more suffering everywhere,” he said.
Scientists have cautioned that the 1.5°C threshold could be breached as early as the early 2030s.
The longer the world stays above this limit, the more extreme events will intensify, destroying farms, displacing families, and draining national budgets struggling to rebuild after repeated shocks.
These impacts are already translating into irreversible loss and damage for the poorest nations.
Guterres stressed that a just energy transition must protect people on the frontlines, especially those whose livelihoods depend on fossil fuels.
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell.
“Put people and equity at the centre of the transition,” he urged, calling for training, social protection, and new economic opportunities, particularly for youth and women.
He also emphasised the urgent need to unlock affordable financing for developing nations, noting that Africa currently receives just two percent of global clean-energy investment, despite being among the regions experiencing the most severe loss and damage from climate-driven disasters.
“The fossil fuel age is ending. Clean energy is rising. Let us make the transition fair, fast, and final,” declared Guterres.
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell echoed these concerns, reminding nations that while the Paris Agreement “bent the curve” of global heating from a catastrophic 5°C to below 3°C, “this is still perilous” as climate impacts intensify across all regions.
“History will not ask what we intended. It will ask what we achieved,” said Stiell, urging countries to submit stronger Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) backed by real financial resources to shield those most exposed to climate harm.
Stiell noted evidence that climate cooperation is working: 90 percent of new power capacity added last year was renewable, and $2 trillion (Sh5,000 trillion) was invested in clean energy, double the amount flowing to fossil fuels.
Yet he warned that nations bearing the brunt of droughts, cyclones, floods, and rising seas still face major challenges in accessing finance to protect lives, infrastructure, and livelihoods.
“We all know that plans without finance cannot reach their full potential. Finance is the great accelerator,” he said.
He stressed that the Baku to Belém Roadmap must transform current climate finance from $300 billion (Sh750 trillion) a year to $1.3 trillion (Sh3,250 trillion) by 2035 to meet global needs.
He emphasised that climate finance is not charity but “an investment in stability and prosperity”, particularly as the cost of inaction is already visible through escalating loss and damage in vulnerable nations.
Both leaders insisted that without fair access to finance, technology, and investment, climate impacts will continue to trap developing nations in cycles of loss, debt, and delayed recovery.
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