In a climate finance statement, more than 30 major international financial institutions affirm their commitment to the fight against climate change
More than 30 international financial institutions committed to collaborate in the fight against climate change, joining forces to meet ambitious climate finance goals set by the Paris agreement.
The climate finance statement came on the heels of an opinion article Monday by all nine big multilateral development banks that committed to a series of concrete measures aimed at making climate action a key component of development projects in a range of sectors, such as energy, water and mobility.
The statement by the multilateral development banks and by the International Development Finance Club, whose members are national and sub-regional development banks, said that its members would put “in place more explicit policies to significantly reduce reliance on fossil fuels and rapidly accelerate financing for renewables.”
Forceful opinions
The statement, released at the One Planet Summit in Paris, came the day after a forceful opinion article from the chiefs of all the big multilateral development banks in which they committed to fulfil the financial targets of the 2015 Paris agreement.
“Today’s political climate is uncertain. But climate change is not,” the article said. “Partnership around the world must be maintained in the global effort to achieve a smooth transition to low carbon and climate-smart development.”
The European Investment Bank, the world’s biggest multilateral lender, put its weight behind the formulation of the joint statement and the opinion article, which was signed by EU bank President Werner Hoyer. The EIB already commits at least 25 percent of its lending to climate action. In 2016 its climate action lending was EUR 19.5 billion.
Impressive though they are, these amounts aren’t enough to stop climate change. After all, the Paris agreement set the financing target of USD 100 billion a year for climate action in developing countries by 2020. So the EIB joined the other authors of the article in committing to “facilitate the public and private finance that is a vital part of the climate solution.”
Overall, multilateral development institutions committed over USD 27 billion in climate finance in 2016.
The chiefs of the multilateral development banks described their commitment as “a serious response to a serious challenge.”
They ended their statement with an appeal to “others to join us in placing climate action at the center of their business, stepping up climate finance, and tracking its impact around the world.”
Read the full opinion article here and get more on the One Planet climate summit here. The full MDB-IDFC statement is here.
