Climate change is a global crisis – it’s real whether or not you are a scientist
“A vast “climate investment gap” hampers the goals and ambition of the Paris Agreement,” head of the World Resources Institute Ani Dashupta told the online audience at the event “Deploying the Full Financial Toolbox to deliver on the Paris Agreement”. Taking place on the margins of the IMF-World Bank Group annual meetings, the event saw EIB President Hoyer and Vice-President Fayolle join Egypt’s Minister for International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat for a discussion that broached both what is needed to mobilise climate finance at the scale that will be required and the hopes and expectations of the panellists for the upcoming COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh.
President Hoyer kicked off the discussion stating that energy, security and climate had to go hand in hand and not be dealt with separately unless we want to risk a replay of our current crisis. “Climate Change is a global crisis – it’s real whether or not you are a scientist," he added.
Implementation: key for delivering on the Paris agreement
Rania Al-Mashat, International Cooperation Minister of the country which currently holds the presidency of COP27, praised the EIB as being an institution both of vision and concrete action: essential ingredients for COP27. She underlined the important partnership with the Bank, pointing to key projects in Egypt especially in the field of water and sustainable transport. She also highlighted the crucial role of multilateral development banks in providing concrete operational support to get climate action projects off the ground.
Echoing a dominant theme of the discussion – that COP27 must above all be about implementation – Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle said he did not believe more commitments were needed at the conferences but rather that we need to make sure that those already made were on track. The speakers emphasised the importance both of investment and private sector support for projects in the sphere of adaptation and biodiversity protection.
“The biodiversity crisis presents as important a challenge as the climate crisis” said Vice-President Fayolle.