By Okeoghene Akubuike
Dr Sultan Al Jaber, COP28 President-Designate, and Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, IMF, co-chaired a roundtable discussion as part of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact.
Also co-chairing the roundtable was Ajay Banga, President, World Bank Group, and Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance and Co-Chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ).
A statement issued by the IMF Press Centre, a copy obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) in Abuja on Thursday said the summit took place at the Palais Brongniart, Paris.
The statement said the high-level roundtable had become a key forum for an informal exchange of high-impact ideas to drive substantive progress on the climate finance agenda.
“Today’s roundtable brought together net zero-committed financial institutions in GFANZ, government officials, and the leadership of the IMF and multilateral development banks (MDBs).
“They gathered to identify priority actions to mobilise private climate investment in emerging markets and developing countries (EMDCs), focusing on delivering near-term results, in the runup to COP28.”
It said current climate investment into EMDCs remained insufficient to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement
The statement said this further underscored the need to use MDB and other development finance catalytically to unlock local and international private finance,
“Also to enhance technical capacity to build a pipeline of bankable climate projects and implement public policies to establish an enabling environment for investment in the green transition.”
It said ensuring a just and global net-zero transition required scaling creative and effective solutions, including solutions to mobilising catalytic private investment in EMDCs.
“Today’s conversation was informed by work underway through the Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs), the IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST), and various World Bank Group initiatives.
“With the objective of joining efforts from today’s Summit in Paris through to COP28, the Co-Chairs agreed to organise additional roundtable discussions this year that will further such solutions.
The statement said the Co-Chairs agreed in particular the following set of actions.
” The Co-Chairs intended to consider the working group’s proposed recommendations which were focused on increasing investment in sustainable infrastructure in emerging and developing markets in preparation for the summit.
It said another action was for the IMF to continue to share the lessons learned from early RST programmes and use the roundtable to share experiences going forward.
The statement said another action was the COP28 Presidency will ask MDBs and specialised climate funds to take action on simplifying and streamlining access to climate finance.
“Also to implement practical new ways for the MDBs and specialised climate fund to work together as a system with the objective of speeding and scaling up private financing of climate transition in EMDCs.”
It said another action was for participants to continue to push forward on institution-specific priorities for capital mobilisation towards climate goals discussed during the roundtable.
The statement said participants would also share updates on progress in subsequent roundtables.
It said participants recognised that private capital would need to play a key role in addressing the financing gap for transitioning to net zero.
The statement said it would require multi-stakeholder action to position transition finance as a great investment opportunity that would help EMDCs to get on the path of sustainable low-carbon growth.
” It would also create the necessary market and policy conditions for turning this opportunity into reality.”
The statement said in addition to the action items determined during the roundtable, the World Bank Group also launched the Private Sector Investment Lab.
It said the lab would be co-chaired by Mark Carney and Shriti Vadera of Prudential, who agreed to include discussions of early proposals surfaced by the Lab in the next roundtable.
The statement quoted Banga as saying “governments, multilateral institutions, and philanthropies are not enough to make adequate progress toward climate and poverty goals in emerging markets and developing countries.
“The scale of our challenge requires the private sector to play a significant role alongside the World Bank Group and other development institutions.
“For years, we have tried and fallen short to mobilise meaningful private investment in these markets. Given the urgency and scale of our intertwined challenges, we must try a new approach.
He said the Private Sector Investment Lab was a concrete step in a broader effort to develop, and rapidly scale, solutions that address the barriers preventing private sector investment in emerging markets. (NAN)
