IDB Group joins other MDBs’ to catalyze low-emissions and climate-resilient development

The global development agenda is at a pivotal point. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have set new development aspirations, and the Paris Agreement has raised ambitions for addressing climate change. There is international consensus on the urgent need to ensure that policy engagements and financial flows are consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate-resilient development.

The Paris Agreement sets the goal of holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts towards limiting it to 1.5°C. In addition, the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C highlights the grave consequences that temperature rise above 1.5°C would entail, and clarifies that all efforts should be made to avoid such a scenario.

The IDB Group and other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) are acting on previous commitments made at COP 21 – including support to the Five Voluntary Principles for Mainstreaming Climate Action within Financial institutions – and at the One Planet Summit. These include the commitments made in December 2017, together with the International Development Finance Club, where the MDBs announced a vision to align financial flows with the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

To accomplish this goal, working together is key to develop a dedicated approach, which constitutes a concrete and ongoing contribution to the operationalization of the Paris Agreement’s Article 2.1.(c). This approach aims at aligning the MDBs’ activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement. It goes beyond the specific MDBs’ 2020 and 2030 climate finance targets and builds on the on-going contribution to climate finance, which in 2017 amounted to $35 billion in developing and emerging economies, and enabled the mobilization of an additional $52 billion from private and public sector sources.

The MDBs’ approach is based on six building blocks that have been identified as the core areas for alignment with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. A joint MDB working group is developing methods and tools to operationalize this effort under each of the building blocks.

• Alignment with mitigation goals
• Adaptation and climate-resilient operations
• Accelerated contribution to the transition through climate finance
• Engagement and policy development support
• Reporting
• Align internal activities

These building blocks serve as the basis for a joint MDB approach towards alignment with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, while fully acknowledging each MDB’s mandate, capability, and operational model. Accordingly, differentiated ways and timing of implementation are possible within robust common principles, framework, criteria and timeline.

The MDBs will develop relevant methods and tools with the objective to present our joint Paris alignment approach and individual MDB progress towards alignment at COP 25 in 2019.

Original source: IADB
Published on 4 December 2018