Mahmoud Mohieldin, the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, said the biggest challenge in 2023 is to enhance climate action while reducing using debt as a method of financing climate action.
This came during his participation in the "Partnerships for making the change" session within the activities of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, with the participation of Nigel Topping, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP26.
"Climate finance should depend on the "avoiding harm comes before bringing benefits' principle," Mohieldin stated, adding that around 60% of climate finance is on a debt basis although developing countries should not be asked to pay the cost of a crisis caused by the developing ones.
Mohieldin noted that financing climate action in developing countries and emerging markets should be done on concessional terms that include low-interest rates with long-term repayment periods.
He highlighted also the necessity of cooperation in activating debt swaps for co-investing in nature and climate and carbon markets to help developing countries achieve their climate targets.
"Climate finance gap requires wider participation of private sector in different climate action dimensions, and this requires the international and regional development banks to help governments in sharing policies that contribute to risk reduction and -therefore-encourage private sector to participate in financing and implementing climate projects," Mohieldin explained.
In this context, Mohieldin referred to the Five Regional Roundtables Initiative launched by Egypt's presidency of COP27, UN regional economic commissions, and HLCs, which have resulted in a big number of investable, bankable, and applicable projects that cover -overall- the goals of mitigation and adaptation, saying that Emirates presidency of COP28 will build on the results of this initiative to push forward financing and implementing a number of these projects before the conference next November.
Mohieldin said that COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh made a room for all who are concerned with the climate crisis, and discussed all aspects of climate action, explaining that the conference kept the mitigation goals alive, launched the Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda that its implementation depends on partnership and cooperation between governmental and non-governmental actors, established Loss and Damage Fund, and succeeded in activating mechanisms of financing all climate action dimensions previously mentioned.
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