Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt , speaks during the opening session of Europe and Central Asia Regional Forum for Climate Action, held by Egypt presidency of COP27, UNECE and HLCs in Geneva on Monday 17 October 2022
Mohiedin made his remarks during the opening session of Europe and Central Asia Regional Forum for Climate Action, held in Geneva by Egypt’s presidency of the 27th UN Conference on Climate Change (COP27) and the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
The event is the fifth regional forum ahead of COP27, which is slated to be held 6-18 November in the Egyptian Red Sea city of Sharm El-Sheik.
Previous roundtables were held in Addis Ababa, Bangkok and Beirut.
The roundtables were held with the aim of enhancing the regional dimension of climate action, finding the best applicable, bankable and investable projects, and mobilising sufficient finance for these projects.
Hopes are pinned on COP27 to push richer countries to support developing nations transition to green energy, especially as the developed countries did not fulfill to the moment their Copenhagen conference pledge to finance climate action in the developing countries by $100 billion per year.
In such this context, Mohiedin stressed the importance of the role of state budgets, the private sector and partnerships with different financing entities in mobilising required financing.
"Even if this sum has been fulfilled it will not represent more than three percent of the climate action required finance," Mohiedlin said.
Mohieldin said it was important to deal with the private sector’s reluctance to invest in emerging markets, as shown in international reports.
He said that these reports revealed that 88 percent of emerging markets – including some European and Central Asian markets – are beneath investment grade, and face problems of institutional instability, non-transparent economic data and unstable currency.
"This requires governments and international organisations to work together in order to reduce investment risks in the emerging markets and build a suitable environment for implementing sustainable development projects including climate ones," he stressed.
Financing climate action requires "intensive" local, regional and international collaboration considering the daunting challenges in the last couple of years, the negative impacts of COVID-19 on health sector, food insecurity and energy shortage resulting from the Ukraine crisis," he said.
Besides, the IMF and other related institutions expects 2023 will see increased inflation, deteriorating economic performance, and lower growth rates all over the world, Mohieldin elaborated.
These challenges, Mohiedlin noted, highlight the importance of the five regional forums initiative that aims not only to generate development and climate projects, but also to discuss the mechanisms of financing these projects.
The initiatives bring governments, private sector and financing entities representatives under one roof to find solutions and remove obstacles that may face the implementation process.
"This is the pragmatic approach that Egypt’s presidency of COP27 already adopted and calling for," Mohieldin added.
Mohieldin said that the previous four regional forums discussed around 400 climate and development projects that have been filtered into 50 projects.
These 50 projects are ready for financing and will be showcased during COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh's, while 100 projects will be posted on related websites to discuss their future financing and implementing, he added.
Many of these projects will benefit from financing from the $130 trillion commitments to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, according to Mohieldin.
Mohieldin expects Geneva's forum will result in another number of development and climate projects that go with Paris agreement and aim to achieve both mitigation and adaptation goals and finding the suitable way to finance and invest in these projects.
There is no conflict between implementing Paris agreement and achieving the sustainable development goals, Mohieldin, who is also UN special envoy on financing 2030 sustainable development agenda, said.
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