COP26: ‘Not blah blah blah’, UN Special Envoy Carney presents watershed private sector commitment for climate finance
At COP15 in 2009, climate finance funding of $100 billion a year by 2020 was agreed to support resilience, adaptation, and energy transitions in developing countries. The promise is now officially delayed to 2023.
However, COP26 President Alok Sharma delivered some good news: 90 per cent of the world’s economy is now covered in a net-zero target. Only 30 per cent was committed at the beginning of 2020.
“It is regrettable that we are highly unlikely to meet the $100 billion dollar goal in 2021, but based of the information submitted by donors, the analysis shows that developed countries will make significant towards the 100-billion-dollar goal in 2022, and I believe it also provides confidence that we will meet it in 2023”, he said during a press conference on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, and referring to the same matter, UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak urged developed countries to boost their support to developing countries, including by helping them tap into the trillions of dollars committed to net zero by the private sector.
However, UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa stressed that some advancements have been made in this regard.
“United States joined Britain, France, Germany and the European Union in a multibillion-dollar partnership to support South Africa finance equal transition from coal. This initiative is valued at 8.5 billion over all”, she said.
She added that Japan and Australia have also announced commitments to double their adaptation finance, and United States, Switzerland and Canada also significantly raised their financial support to adaptation.
Moreover, countries have also committed to funnel $12 billion for forest-related climate finance between 2021-2025.
“New commitments have been made by Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg, so I do hope that by the end of this conference we can really get to the goal of the 100 billion maybe in 2022”, Ms. Espinosa urged.
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