Finance and innovation critical to achieving climate goal

As the impacts of climate change continue to be felt around the globe, there is an urgent need for effective large-scale action. Combatting the climate crisis will require both upscaled investment in climate technologies and the use of emerging digital technologies. These will be the focus of two side-events organized by UN Climate Change at this year’s Conference, COP25, in Madrid.

Due to the high upfront costs of climate technologies, access in both developed and developing countries to low-cost private finance will be critical to address climate change.

To encourage private investment in climate action, it is necessary not only to show that it makes economic sense, but also to measure the climate contribution of the investment, which is a complex task.

Green Bonds are the main financial instruments currently available for shifting low-cost private finance towards climate solutions. To serve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a green bond should enable the financial viability of climate technologies that would otherwise would not have been viable.

However, this is currently not a requirement for a bond to be labelled green. At the above-mentioned side event, a panel will discuss to what extent a new definition of a green bond integrating this requirement is necessary.

The UN Secretary-General has requested UN Agencies to leverage emerging digital technologies to serve people and the UN values. These emerging digital technologies can have an unprecedented transformative impact on climate policymaking and climate action.

Original source: UNFCCC
Published on 05 December 2019