Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, said that climate and development action priorities in developing countries should be taken into account when identifying ways and where to channel financing.
This came during his participation in a session entitled “Channelling Green Finance to Emerging Markets for a Just Transition” within the events of the “Net Zero Delivery Summit 2023: Financing a Just Transition Agenda”, organized by City of London in collaboration with COP27 presidency, in which Sherif Kamel, Egypt Ambassador to UK, made a speech on behalf of Ambassador Sameh Shokri, Minister of Foreign Affairs and COP27 President. Mohamed Maait, Minister of Finance, participated also in the summit.
The session witnessed the participation of Diana Guzman, Prudential plc Group Director ESG, Samaila Zubairo, President of Africa Finance Corporation, Nguyen Hoang Long, Ambassador of Vietnam to London, and Philippe Valahu, Chief Executive Officer of The Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG).
Mohieldin explained that the annual $100 billion pledged by the developed countries to finance climate action in the developing countries in 2009 has not been fulfilled to the moment, It has also not been coordinated with developing countries and has not been placed in the context of what these countries need to implement their climate action.
He stressed that climate action in developing countries is a part of the development process as a whole, stressing that developing countries have to fix their finance and investment structures in a way that help reducing risks and encouraging investors and private sector as well as IFIs and MDBs to participate in financing climate and development projects in these countries.
“It is necessary to balance financing decarbonization and adaptation, and to focus on the actual implementation of climate action and finding the practical solutions to deal with constraints of climate projects.” Mohieldin said.
“For this pragmatic approach, the Egyptian presidency of COP27 in collaboration with UN regional economic commissions and HLCs launched the Five Regional Roundtables Initiative with the aim of finding a pipeline of investable, bankable and implementable climate and development projects.” Mohieldin stated, adding that a big number of projects have been discussed and shortlisted into 120+ projects around the world that can be implemented immediately if there is serious interest in funding and implementing them.
The climate champion stressed the necessity of giving up depending on lending only as a mean of financing climate and development action in developing countries, especially that some of these countries are already suffering from debt crises. He confirmed also the importance of activating the role of technology in finding and implementing climate solutions, especially in the energy sector.
Mohieldin highlighted the need of the global financial structure to be reformed in a way that allow larger and more efficient participation of IFIs and MDBs in financing and implementing climate and development projects.
He confirmed the need to enhance the participation of the private sector in financing and implementing development and climate action, and to establish more effective partnerships between the public and private sectors, while applying standards of ESGs for companies and the private sector to prevent greenwashing.
