$2.4 trillion: Climate action demands money, and lots of it, says UN climate chief
The global community needs to mobilise at least $2.4 trillion to meet climate change goals, the UN climate chief said in a speech in Baku on Friday – Simon Stiell’s first major speech since the recently concluded COP28 Summit in Dubai in November.
The Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change addressed a group of students at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy in Baku, host of the upcoming COP29 climate conference, laying out ways to turn the commitments made last year into reality.
Climate finance likely to be the main focus of COP29
The Dubai event marked a major achievement on its first day itself as participants agreed to operationalise the Loss and Damage Fund. In the end, nearly 200 countries acknowledged the pressing need to transition away from fossil fuels to avert the worst consequences.
“It’s clear that to achieve this transition, we need money, and lots of it – $2.4 trillion, if not more,” excluding China, said Stiell in prepared remarks, citing a report released in December from the High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, reported Reuters.
Climate finance is expected to be the main focus of the COP29 Summit in November 2024, as governments across the globe will be tasked with setting a new target post-2025 for raising money to support developing country efforts to cut emissions and adapt to changes.
But setting a new financial objective isn’t likely to be easy, given that countries only last year met a goal set back in 2009 to mobilise $100 billion every year in climate finance by 2020. Stiell called finance the “make-or-break factor” in the fight against climate change.
Credibility of consensus reached at COP28 depends on …
In his speech, the UN climate chief also urged financial institutions to triple the amount of climate grants and concessional finance by the end of the decade and triple the rate of private capital they mobilise, the Reuters news agency added.
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has confirmed 2023 as the hottest year ever, shining light on the increasing need for climate action. The credibility of the consensus reached at COP28 depends on rethinking current plans to expand oil and gas production.
