Dr Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, said that the regional forum of Arab region that held in on Thursday in Beirut discussed 28 effective project in the fields of transportation, energy, agriculture, facing desertification and water management that represent in whole the climate action priorities.
Mohieldin added, during his speech in the closing session, that the forum is well organized by ESCWA, Egypt presidency of COP27 and HLCs, while GFANZ, investment banks and development partners participated, and this reflected the interest of all stakeholders to get involved in climate action.
“Climate financing and encouraging investors and finance entities to participate requires the existence of applicable and bankable projects, that’s the goal of the five regional roundtables initiative.” Mohieldin said, explaining that climate financing fact represents a “dilemma” as it has been described by Ambassador Wael Abu Elmagd during his speech in the closing session, considering the big gap between what has been offered and what is required to implement climate projects.
“It’s necessary for Arab governments to link public budgets to SDGs as public finance could be considered the cornerstone of financing development and climate action including adaptation measures.” Mohieldin stated, saying that climate financing should take the shape of partnerships and investments rather than debts, especially with having feasible projects on the table.
He explained that debts could represent investing opportunities in case the Arab states reached deals with lenders to activate debt swaps, referring also to the importance of blended finance as a method to implement climate projects.
At the end of his speech, Mohieldin confirmed the importance to deal with investing in development and climate action as an investment in human capital in order to build capacity and enhance the skills of dealing with new technologies that development and climate projects depend on.
