Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, said that a number of initiatives and announcements reached during COP27 can effectively contribute to dealing with the financing and nature crises, foremost of which are the Sharm El Sheikh Adaptation Agenda, ENACT, the Forest and Climate Leaders Partnership, and the Africa Forest Restoration Initiative.
This came during his participation in a session entitled “Why Finance and Nature are Critical for a Course Correcting Transformation” within the events of Bonn Climate Conference, with the participation of Razan Al-Mubarak, HLC for COP28, Clare Everett, CDP Marrakech Partnership.
Mohieldin noted that the first global stocktake this year calls for an urgent need to accelerate solutions for climate crisis through mobilizing the necessary financing and effectively implementing environmental and climate action.
He confirmed that meeting the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals depends on success in preserving, restoring and managing biodiversity, stressing that avoiding the catastrophic effects of climate change and achieving resilience requires restoring the lost biodiversity before 2030.
Mohieldin stated that debt crisis prevents many countries from financing their mitigation and adaptation activities, however, two-thirds of climate finance still depends on debt. Moreover, environmental protection, management and restoration activities still do not receive the required funding, which underscores the need to reform the global financing system.
Mohieldin stressed the need to mobilize and accelerate climate and environmental financing to deal with the crises of climate change and loss of nature, mainly by activating innovative financing mechanisms, working to diversify sources of financing by involving the private sector, and taking advantage of debt swaps to address both climate and financing crises.
He reported that climate finance is insufficient, unfair and inefficient, highlighting the importance of finding investable, bankable and implementable projects through the initiative of the Five Regional Roundtables for climate finance, organized by Egypt and UAE presidencies of COP27 and COP28 in collaboration with UN regional economic commissions and HLCs, saying that the second edition of the initiative aims to reach agreements on financing 10-15 climate and development projects in the five regions before COP28.
He added that the HLCs team is working with various partners to activate innovative financing mechanisms and debt swaps for investment in nature and climate.
Mohieldin concluded his speech by stressing that the effectiveness of financing is no less important than mobilizing it, so that financing ensures the achievement of climate and development goals while alleviating the debt burdens and financial crises of developing countries. He also stressed the need to improve environment for investment and financing in developing countries in a way that ensures the flow of investments and financing for climate and development projects.
