UNFCCC chief leads drive for new era of climate cooperation

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary Simon Stiell has rallied members of the treaty to face the new world disorder with a new era of international climate cooperation.

Speaking in a press conference hosted by the COP31 president designate, Minister Murat Kurum in Istanbul, Türkey, on 12 February 2026, Simon Stiell bared strategies to speed up and scale up climate action, such as doubling energy efficiency and tripling clean energy by 2030; transitioning away from all fossil fuels, in a just, fair and orderly manner; strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability; and ensuring more climate finance reaches people everywhere, especially the most vulnerable.

“By 2028, we must be on track to meet those commitments. So that countries come to COP33 confident of a robust response that delivers not just survival but strength: boosting resilience, growing economies, and slashing emissions. Committing to new and stronger targets that the science demands,” Stiell said.

COP33 is the climate change conference in 2028 to be hosted by India.

He said that hyper-charging the flow of finance is key, so every country can seize the vast benefits of climate action, and build climate resilience to protect their peoples.

To ensure that countries have the support they need to deliver in full on their National Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions, and to boost them, the cost of capital should be lowered and a massive surge in the quantity and quality of climate finance must be secured, especially for developing countries.

“Multilateral Development Banks will be crucial into providing more finance, bringing in the private sector, producing better data, and continuing to reform,” according to Stiell.

The executive secretary warned that growing greenhouse gas pollution means escalating climate extremes fueling famine, displacement and war.

“The good news is there is now a very, very clear alternative. Because climate cooperation is an antidote to the chaos and coercion of this moment, and clean energy is the obvious solution to spiraling fossil fuel costs, both human and economic,” he said.

Stiell added that climate adaptation is the only path to securing billions of human lives, as climate impacts get rapidly worse.

The UN climate change chief is optimistic that in today’s fractured geopolitics, climate cooperation can keep delivering the major step-up that is needed.