UN Climate Chief remarks at UN80 briefing

Below are remarks delivered by UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell during a briefing on the UN80 initiative at the UN June Climate Meetings in Bonn, Germany, on Tuesday 16 June 2026.

So just to set the context, what is UN80, why is it taking place, and what is it aiming to do.

UN80 is the initiative of the Secretary-General on the 80^th anniversary of the UN's creation to modernise the UN, to better meet the needs of members states and the global population today.

It is in part about finding efficiencies and synergies, in light of the huge pressures facing the UN system.

Expectations and mandates have been growing, while resourcing has become more and more constrained.

As the issues the UN addresses have grown in complexity and breadth, there has been duplication of efforts that has developed. The fight against climate change is no exception.

But UN80 is not just about reforms to address inefficiencies or other problems.

It's also a huge opportunity - to make the UN system more cohesive, more streamlined and nimble, so together we can work with member states and others to deliver far more real-world impact.

Again - the climate fight is a prime example.

Climate multilateralism through our process has already delivered vast progress - arguably more than any comparable multilateral process.

Together we've brought projected temperatures down from unsurvivable levels well above 4 degrees C, to around the mid 2 degrees C range. Still a long way from 1.5, but a lot of progress.

In the real world, renewables overtook coal last year as the world's top electricity source.

So our process is underpinning serious real-world transformation.

But we all know this process is still nowhere near enough. We all know there is still a huge ambition and implementation gap.

There are of course many reasons for those gaps - including insufficient political will, and in many cases insufficient support - or finance.

So UN80 does not address those major causes of the ambition and implementation gaps.

But even so, getting the UN's climate efforts working more closely together, is an important part of what the UN system can do to help close those gaps.

That's why at the secretariat we've already been working to find efficiencies and synergies. So we make the most of every bit of funding from Party and other donors.

And in UN80 we are working closely with other UN agencies to do this across agencies and entities.

I also want to be very clear on what UN80 is not:

It is not a mechanism by which the primacy and ownership of the Parties to the Convention and Paris Agreement is going to be altered.

The legal foundations of the Convention and Paris Agreement are very clear, and so there is no structural change that can or will affect or dilute the Party-owned basis of this process.

UN80 is not about reopening mandates or replacing intergovernmental processes and it does not change the Convention, the Paris Agreement, or the authority of Parties.

What UN80 is doing is very broad - and is being delivered through over 30 workstreams, or Work Packages.

I'd like to discuss particularly Work Package 27 - or WP27 - on the environment and climate.

WP27 is looking to strengthen coherence, reduce fragmentation and improve delivery across the environmental and climate work of the UN system.

Fundamentally, it is an opportunity to accelerate work to address the environmental crises, including the climate crisis.

However this does not mean in any way there is any move of the UN's climate work to be subsumed or absorbed within wider environmental work.

As we all know - the climate crisis - goes far beyond the environment, even as we see the environmental causes, particularly deforestation and damage to the ocean - are playing an increasing role. And as the environmental impacts get worse every year.

As we all know, the climate crisis is increasingly a whole-of-government, whole-of-economy crisis, hitting every sector and every part of societies.

So too the transformation of the global energy system we are now seeing at scale - and the burgeoning resilience solutions - present massive opportunities that go far beyond the environment.

WP27 brings together a range of UN entities, I believe the number is about 29, and other parts of the system - reflecting that environment, including climate, is connected to a wide range of issues - from economic growth, jobs and living standards, to health to peace and security.

Work Package 27 is about:

• how entities work together;
• how support is organized;
• how knowledge and data are made accessible;
• how countries can receive more coherent implementation support.

I am co-chairing Work Package 27 with Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. Three principles are guiding our work:

• First, building on existing mandates and platforms, respecting institutional autonomy, while enabling and strengthening collaboration. Coherence should not mean centralization. The existing authority of Parties and governing bodies is not up for debate.
• Second, science-informed support to member states must be a key focus. The test of any reform proposal should be whether it helps countries deliver more effectively on the ground.
• And third, we must make the UN system easier to navigate and use. Countries should not have to deal with fragmented entry points, overlapping tools, or disconnected sources of support.

UN80 Recommendations from across the UN system, including Work Package 27, will be submitted to the Secretary-General, who will refine them and decide how to take them forward.

At this stage, Work Package 27 recommendations are still draft. They remain under consultation with UN management.

So James will provide a broader overview of UN80, and Niclas will then go deeper into the Work Package and the emerging recommendations.

So I look forward to this exchange, your reactions, and how this work can best support you.