Honourable Ministers,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
 
In my opening statement to this conference one week ago, I told you that this was the most important COP since the adoption of the Paris Agreement.
 
I warned that climate change is running faster than we are and that Katowice must—in no uncertain terms—be a success, as a necessary platform to reverse this trend.
 
To achieve it, I said that ambition and compromises were both needed. Never have the stakes been higher.
 
I left Katowice hopeful, but uncertain.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, and allow me first of all to express my deep gratitude for Poland’s hospitality and Katowice’s hospitality in relation to the COP, and your commitment, your personal commitment, for Poland to generously accept to lead once more the COP process.
 
As you said, Mr. President, we cannot afford to fail in Katowice.
 
Climate change is still running faster than what we are. We need to reverse this trend and Katowice is an essential platform for this reversal to take place.
 

Minister Kurtyka,
Minister Morawiecki,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests, ladies and gentlemen,
 
It is a pleasure to address you at this exciting event.     
 
I want to thank the Government of Poland and in-coming COP president Mr. Kurtyka and the United Kingdom for launching this initiative.
 
This event is exciting because it is a key step towards the sustainability transition that we all know is needed.
 

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
 
We all know the massive scale of the climate challenge we face.
 
And we all know we are not on track.
 
I am pleased to be with you today to talk about the Climate Summit I will host next September in New York to help put us on track.
 
The Summit will focus on delivering three key outcomes: raising real ambition; transformative action in the real economy; and an unprecedented citizen and youth mobilization.
 
First, ambition.
 
Countries need notably to fulfil their pledges.