UN climate chief: fossil fuel dependency is a security risk Europe can't afford

The Middle East conflict is sending oil and gas prices sharply higher — and the United Nations (UN)‘s top climate official says the turmoil makes the case for renewable energy more powerfully than any policy paper ever could, as reported by UN. Speaking at the 2026 Green Growth Summit in Brussels, Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told European climate ministers, investors, and business leaders that fossil fuel dependency is systematically undermining national security, household budgets, and economic stability — and that renewables are the practical alternative, not a distant aspiration.

The echoes of the Ukraine war’s energy shock were hard to miss. Stiell drew the parallel deliberately, arguing that what markets are experiencing now is not a one-off disruption but a predictable feature of fossil fuel dependence.

“Sunlight doesn’t depend on narrow and vulnerable shipping straits,” he said. “Wind blows without massive taxpayer-funded naval escorts.” His message was blunt: doubling down on fossil fuels in response to a fossil fuel crisis is, in his words, “completely delusional.” Fossil fuel imports cost Europe over €420 billion in 2024 alone — money that clean energy investment could redirect into jobs, lower bills, and cleaner air. In 2025, renewables overtook coal as the world’s top electricity source, and over $2 trillion was invested in clean energy globally — double the investment in fossil fuels.

Stiell pointed to European companies already leading the transition — SSAB in green steel, Maersk in shipping, Siemens in wind power — as proof that the continent has the industrial foundation to compete in the clean economy.

His closing argument to ministers was straightforward: Europe is more dependent on fossil fuel imports than almost any other major economy, and that dependence will keep households and industries lurching from crisis to crisis until the shift to renewables is completed at scale. The investment opportunity is real, the technology is ready, and the geopolitical case has never been stronger.