The following is a transcript of remarks delivered by UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell at the opening of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue on Tuesday 21 April 2026 in Berlin, Germany.
Honorable Ministers, distinguished delegates, dear friends.
These are perilous times.
We hope for a swift, lasting peace in the Middle East, and every conflict.
But this latest war 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.
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.
Climate cooperation is key to fending off the twin-reapers of global heating and fossil fuel cost chaos.
Clean energy offers security and affordability - returning sovereignty to nations and their peoples.
The need to accelerate action has never been clearer.
And that demands every tool at our disposal.
Negotiations are one - and they remain critical.
They've delivered landmark commitments, including at the first global stocktake at COP28.
Now, in this era of implementation - we must turn them into projects on the ground.
By breaking-down global targets into achievable chunks, matching them with solutions, and delivering.
So that by the second global stocktake at COP33, we are on track to meet the commitments made at the first.
With this international process tracking progress, helping to show what's working, and where barriers are holding us back.
Elevating the Action Agenda to share center-stage with negotiations is vital to picking up the pace - to harnessing and accelerating real-economy momentum to deliver on National Adaptation Plans and NDCs.
Year after year, this crucial fast-lane of the Paris Agreement has driven implementation at scale.
Mobilizing trillions of dollars within the real economy.
And pushing key sectors towards positive tipping points, and some beyond: most notably, the clean energy transition is now irreversible.
Now, we need to unleash the full power of the Action Agenda the world over - equally, in both the global North and global South.
With coalitions of the willing leading the way.
Governments driving progress and encouraging investment between COPs.
Far more finance flowing into developing countries.
And climate multilateralism meeting the moment we're in.
That means looking to where the urgency is greatest, and our impact can be strongest and fastest.
Areas like grid modernization are speeding up the shift to clean energy, cutting planet-heating pollution faster, and escaping the economic trapdoor of fossil fuel dependency.
Methane is an ultra-potent greenhouse gas. Slashing emissions by 2030 will have a huge impact on putting the brakes on global heating.
Early warning systems save lives on a huge scale.
Half of humanity live in cities - let's make them sustainable.
And climate resilient food supplies and cutting waste are critical to putting affordable food on the table for billions of households, and driving-down greenhouse gases.
Action on food and agriculture has the potential to cut a third of global emissions.
On these and other high-impact areas, the Turkish COP31 Presidency - working closely with Australia - is pointing us in the right direction.
Emphasizing implementation and setting-out clear Action Agenda themes, aligned with those mapped out astutely by Brazil to guide progress towards the second global stocktake.
As every nation at COP30 declared unanimously: Paris is working, and together we will make it go further and faster.
This work is key to doing so. So let's get on with the job.
I thank you.
