Happy Nice Mall

GLASGOW – As negotiators at the United Nations climate summit grapple with the question of how to pay for the enormous costs of climate change, some of the world’s largest financial institutions on Wednesday pledged to mobilize trillions of dollars to help shift the global economy to cleaner energy.

At the global climate summit here, a coalition of banks, investors and insurers collectively control $130 trillion in assets. said he would commit It aims to reach net zero emissions in its investments by 2050. This was essentially a commitment to make climate change the focus of important financial decisions for the next decades.

“We now have the equipment to take climate change from the extremes to the forefront of finance, ensuring that every financial decision takes climate change into account,” said Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England, who led the coalition. with billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

This promise was met with skepticism by environmentalists, who said the details were vague and many banks still invest hundreds of billions of dollars each year in fossil fuels.

“Either they stop funding fossil expansion or their net zero commitment is greenwashing,” he said. Jason Opeña Disterhoft, senior climate and energy campaigner for Rainforest Action Network, an environmental group.

Money is big for a long time nodal point At the Glasgow summit organized by the United Nations, the global fight against climate change and the related tensions flared up again.

A decade ago, the world’s richest countries pledged $100 billion a year in climate assistance by 2020 to help poorer countries transition to cleaner energy and ward off rising heat waves, floods, droughts and wildfires as the planet warms.

So far, these promises have not been fulfilled. By a guessrich countries still run short of tens of billions of dollars a year. and critics said that even this money is badly targeted. Most of the aid to date has been distributed as loans that developing countries often have difficulty repaying. And only a small sliver of funding has gone to efforts to adapt to climate change.

At the summit, which will last until 12 November, developing countries and smaller countries, which emit only a small fraction of the world’s greenhouse gases, begged rich countries to do more.

“Our countries are the least responsible for the damage done to the world’s environment, but we pay the highest price,” said Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Barbuda and Antigua, who are struggling to rebuild after the Category 5 hurricane that hit the country in 2017. .

Mr Browne noted that even if the world’s richest countries fail to deliver on their promises on climate finance, major economies have spent roughly $3.3 trillion subsidizing fossil fuel production and consumption since 2015. a new study.

“We agree that this is reactionary,” said Mr Browne. I request that we do not squander this important opportunity.”

Last month, diplomats from Canada and Germany announced a plan for rich nations to meet their annual targets of $100 billion in climate assistance by 2023.

But as the dangers of global warming continue to rise – especially nations not committed yet to cut its emissions deeply enough to keep global warming at a relatively safe level – these financial needs are also growing.

“This $100 billion is insignificant in light of what is actually needed,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh. “But the credibility of rich nations is at stake. If they can’t even deliver what they promised, why should we believe anything else they have to say?”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States will support a financing mechanism that aims to divert $500 million a year to shift developing countries from coal-based energy to wind, solar and other low and zero-carbon energy sources.

But he noted that the true cost of climate change would likely reach trillions of dollars.

“I agree that we all need to do more, and the US is stepping up,” Ms Yellen said. But he added that the gap between what governments have and what the world needs is huge, and the private sector needs to play a bigger role.

To that end, a group of charities and international development banks have announced a $10.5 billion fund to help emerging economies with growing energy needs make the transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

The group, known as the Global Energy Alliance, aims to attract more donors in the coming weeks. It has now drawn $1.5 billion from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ikea Foundation, and other organizations. Bezos World Fund9 billion dollars with development banks such as the African Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation. The alliance says it aims to raise $100 billion in public and private capital to expand access to clean electricity supplies for one billion people in developing countries.

Raj Shah, head of the Rockefeller Foundation, which helped build the alliance, said money is needed to relaunch clean energy technologies that would otherwise not attract private investment.

“Acceleration of climate transitions in developing countries will not happen if an immediate 20 percent return on every investment is required,” Shah said. The money will support initiatives such as developing mini power grids in parts of the country. rural indiaHe helped Indonesia shut down some of its oldest and most polluting coal-fired power plants and develop a hydroelectric project in Sierra Leone.

But the biggest announcement of the day came from a coalition of investors controlling $130 trillion in financial assets. use that capital Achieving net zero emission targets in investments by 2050. Known as the United Nations Financial Alliance for Glasgow Net Zero, the group consists of 450 banks, insurers and asset managers in 45 countries.

While the agreement is voluntary, it demonstrates a commitment to use the money of a wide variety of financial institutions, including banks, insurers, pension funds, asset managers, export credit agencies, stock markets, credit rating agencies, index providers and audit firms, to push businesses. to reduce emissions.

Environmentalists and negotiators from developing countries said they were concerned that money was still lacking to help countries adapt to sea level rise and other increasingly extreme disasters.

Projects like building seawalls, planting mangroves, improving drainage and other ways to prepare for climate change disasters aren’t always attractive to investors because they don’t turn a profit, experts said. This means that the vast majority of climate finance still goes towards investments in wind, solar and other emission reduction tools.

At the same time, vulnerable countries in Glasgow are arguing for a separate financing mechanism to deal with the disasters they cannot adapt to, often referred to as “loss and damage”. But this proposal faces opposition from wealthier countries, who fear it could open the door to future compensation claims.

But in the midst of all this war, some observers said the growing momentum around climate finance is a step up from negotiations a decade ago.

“There’s criticism that some of it is a little pessimistic, some a little green and vague, and yes,” said Rachel Kyte, dean of Tufts University’s Fletcher School and climate adviser to the United Nations secretary-general. “But six years ago, who thought we’d have $130 trillion in some kind of club moving in the same direction? Number.”

“We’re not there yet,” he added, noting that the world still doesn’t provide nearly enough funding to address the great challenges of climate change. “But things are starting to move in the right direction.”

Contributed by reporting Somini Sengupta, Mayor of Liz and Jenny Gross