The second edition of the European Regional Forum aims to concert the efforts to finance climate projects in the European emerging economies
Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, said that the Five Regional Roundtables Initiative contributes to mobilizing required funds for climate action.
This came during his participation in The Second Edition of European Regional Forum on “Climate Initiatives to Finance Climate Action and the SDGs” held in Frankfurt with the participation of Dr. Esther Wandel, Head of Investment Funds and Sustainable Finance Division at the German Federal Ministry of Finance, Dmitry Mariyasin, Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Daniel Bouzas, UNEP Regional Coordinator to Europe, and a number of officials of international, regional organizations and European development banks.
Mohieldin stated that the initiative aims to find development projects with economic feasibility that contribute to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, explaining that these projects are investable, bankable and implementable and represent promising opportunities for investors and various financing entities.
He reported that the first edition of the five forums came out with a number of projects in various fields of climate action in developing countries and emerging economies. The projects were showcased during COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh where they captured the attention of public and private funding entities, international financing institutions and multilateral development banks.
Mohieldin stressed the importance of promoting investment in renewables projects in particular as this sector plays the main role in achieving the goal of reducing carbon emissions. He stressed also the need for all actors in Europe to participate in initiatives related to Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) as they contribute effectively to achieving the transition towards low-emission economies.
The climate champion highlighted that the second edition of the European Regional Forum aims to concert the efforts of the public and private sectors to finance development and climate projects in the European emerging economies, and to identify investment and climate finance opportunities that help accelerating the energy sector transition and then the transition to green economies.
Mohieldin called on investors and various financiers to participate in financing climate and development projects in developing countries and emerging economies, and called on these countries to work on improving their investment environments to ensure that the needs and requirements of projects owners, investors and financiers are met, as well as achieving the objectives of local communities from these projects.
The forum is part of the Five Regional Roundtables Initiative launched by the Egyptian presidency of COP27 last year in cooperation with the regional economic commissions of the United Nations and the HLCs with the aim of finding investable, bankable and implementable climate projects around the world. The UAE presidency of COP28 is participating in organizing the second edition of the five forums, which aims to link the projects reached in the first edition to various financiers in order to start implementing them on the ground.