Mohieldin: Cost of Climate Inaction Becomes Threat to Economy

Mahmoud Mohieldin, the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for Egypt, said 2500 NSAs from more than 100 countries participate in the "Race to Resilience" campaign with the aim of building the resilience of vulnerable urban, rural, and coastal communities.

Mohieldin added, during his participation on Tuesday in Climate Innovation Forum alongside London Climate Action Week, that 10k of NSAs from more than 100 countries participate in the "Race to Zero" campaign for halving GHGs by 2030.

He underscored some positive indexes regarding climate change, saying that investing in climate techs increased by 210% YoY in 2020-2021, with EVs -which displaced 1.5m barrels per day of oil last year- being the primary recipient.

In this context, Mohieldin referred to the IEA report that revealed that global energy investment is set to increase 8% in 2022 to reach $2.4tr, with rising mainly from clean energy, mainly in advanced economies and China.

Mohieldin emphasized that despite positive indexes, climate action is still far from what it should be in the shades of big challenges, including energy and food prices surge, inflation rise, difficult geopolitics, and clashes between developed and developing countries over who should pay and who should cut emissions, saying that these challenges require scaling up work and cooperation in order to keep 1.5 degrees of global warming within reach, to accelerate adaptation action, to secure finance delivery for mitigation and adaptation, in addition to mobilizing private sector and other NSAs efforts and investments in climate action.

"Cost of climate inaction is becoming the biggest threat to economic growth. Solutions require public and private collaboration in financing and implementation; Businesses, Banks, Investors, etc who made commitments by joining Race to Zero, Race to Resilience, and GFANZ must show tangible examples of action at the Sharm El Sheikh conference," he said.

He underlined the importance of enhancing clean techs and sustainable solutions in each emitting sector globally by 2030, adding that 40 countries work together in each sector and HLCs bring private sector initiatives.

Mohieldin also referred to the 5 regional finance roundtables that will be held by the Egyptian presidency of COP27 and UN Economic Commissions before the Sharm El-Sheikh conference, explaining that the aim of these meetings is to put climate projects, funding, and investments on one table.