EIB and fellow MDBs commit to collectively raise annual climate finance to USD 175 billion by 2025 in response to climate crisis

The EIB, together with eight other multilateral development banks (MDBs) pledged in a statement during the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit to raise their annual global climate action investment to USD 175 billion by 2025.

This increase would notably focus on low and middle-income economies, and on climate adaptation. To reach their target, the MDBs intend to strengthen partnerships, particularly with private sector investors, to optimise the impact of their climate finance. Rising to USD 110 billion, co-financing is indeed expected to represent almost 2/3 of the total USD 175 billion planned for climate financing by 2025. This would include USD 40 billion mobilised from private sector investors.

Speaking from New York, EIB President Werner Hoyer said: ’As a public financial institution, we have a major role to play in making our economies carbon-neutral, greener, climate-resilient and more inclusive. We must lead by example, by showing unprecedented ambition with our own investments and by facilitating the flow of private capital into sustainable investments at the needed scale globally. This is what we are doing now, all multilateral development banks together, with this new commitment. To significantly step up our climate finance for this fight we need to better mobilise private investment. This is the key to make a real impact”.

Multilateral development banks have been leading climate action for more than a decade to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the increase in global temperatures to well below 2°C, pursuing efforts for 1.5°C.

This statement confirms the MDBs’ collective efforts already demonstrated by the record level of climate finance and co-finance with USD 111 billion reached in 2018 in developing countries and emerging economies.

Original source: EIB
Published on 22 September 2019