Mahmoud Mohieldin, the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, emphasized that climate and development action priorities in developing countries must be considered when identifying means and where to channel financing.
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 the City of London in collaboration with COP27 presidency, Sherif Kamel, Egypt’s Ambassador to the UK, delivered a speech on behalf of Ambassador Sameh Shokri, Minister of Foreign Affairs and COP27 President. Mohamed Maait, Minister of Finance, also participated in the summit.
The session was attended by 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 pointed out that the annual $100bn pledged by developed countries to finance climate action in developing countries in 2009 has not been fulfilled to date. 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 part of the development process as a whole, emphasizing that developing countries need to fix their finance and investment structures to help reduce risks and encourage investors and the private sector, as well as IFIs and MDBs, to participate in financing climate and development projects in these countries.
“To take a pragmatic approach, the Egyptian presidency of COP27, in collaboration with UN regional economic commissions and HLCs, launched the Five Regional Roundtables Initiative intending to find a pipeline of investable, bankable, and implementable climate and development projects,” Mohieldin stated.
He added that a large 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 means of financing climate and development action in developing countries, especially since some of these countries are already suffering from debt crises. He also emphasized the importance of activating the role of technology in finding and implementing climate solutions, especially in the energy sector.
Mohieldin highlighted the need for the global financial structure to be reformed in a way that allows 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.