The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) returns from New York Climate Week with renewed vigor and a reassurance that through cooperative, collaborative, and collective action, we and our partners, are intensifying our efforts to deliver climate finance that brings meaningful change. Held between September 22 to 29, the week, also known as Climate Week NYC, runs in parallel to the United National General Assembly (UNGA), making New York a hotbed for hundreds of events, and bringing together diverse participants, policymakers, financial concerns, philanthropists, and activists, among many more. [Cover image courtesy of the Climate Group via Flickr]
For CIF, our engagements and exchanges centered on three key themes:
The forum was also an opportunity to reconnect to a range of partners: from contributor and client countries to our multilateral development bank (MDB) partners: all of whom are critical to our effectiveness, efficiency, and agility in delivering country-led climate investments.
Throughout the week’s discussions, various partners emphasized the need and urgency to create low carbon pathways for heavy-emitting industries. In recognizing this urgency, CIF is working with partners including international organizations, developing countries, industry, and MBDs to create a financial environment that accelerates, deploys, and scales technologies that can facilitate the transition for heavy emitters.
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has been at the forefront of these efforts, and we were proud to join them for the “Partnerships in Focus: Advancing Decarbonization of Heavy-Emitting Industries”, cohosted by Environment and Climate Change Canada. The forum brought together senior representatives from the steel, concrete, and cement sectors, as well as leaders from developing and developed country governments. We shared our commitment to investing in low carbon pathways for industry and highlighted an important milestone when we officially launch a Call for Expressions of Interest under CIF’s Industrial Decarbonization Investment Program during the 15th Clean Energy Ministerial in Brazil next week.
How to accelerate climate finance was central to several forums we contributed to. One such discussion - cohosted by the Climate Policy Initiative, the Bezos Earth Fund, and the Natural Resources Defense Council – asked the question: “Are Green Banks the key to unlocking climate finance?” We outlined our work with one of our MDB implementing partners, the African Development Bank (AfDB), having launched the African Green Banks Initiative at COP27. The initiative flows from a 2021 scoping report by CIF and AfDB on the potential of green banks and the main barriers to realizing this potential.
As CIF Chief Executive Officer, Tariye Gbadegesin noted during the panel discussion: “[The scoping report] found … a shortage of commercially bankable green projects, coupled with the inability of local financial institutions to originate, structure, and execute green opportunities. That same AfDB/CIF scoping report, however, also identified green banks as a major catalytic vehicle for strengthening national ownership of climate finance and “crowding-in” private investments in low-carbon renewable energy projects.”
Another hot topic at NYC Climate Week was carbon markets. In a fireside chat hosted by Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) our CEO joined Standard Chartered Group Chief Executive Bill Winters to explore the role carbon markets in accelerating climate action. The discussion was moderated by newly appointed United Kingdom Special Representative for Climate and current VCMI co-chair, Rachel Kyte, who asked Ms. Gbadegesin what she would like to see at next year’s NYC Climate Week on this issue; To which she replied: “Carbon markets back in play. Big time!”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres convened the high-level “SDG Moment” aimed at emphasizing the progress made, as well as how much more is to be done, to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We were thrilled to hear Secretary-General Guterres call for doubling funding for adaptation by 2025 – that’s next year! He also reiterated the need for new and innovative mechanisms to deploy climate finance: a call CIF will answer again and again!
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau framed the SDGs as the “building blocks of the future.”
“Which ones will be the multipliers?” he asked and noted that this should be the focus as the world works to achieve the 17 goals.
CIF was proud to join the Global Capacity Building Coalition (GCBC) as an observer and to see the organization launch a new digital platform with tools and training on climate finance for financial institutions in developing countries. Known as the “GCBC Digital Platform”, it was launched by businessman and philanthropist, Michael Bloomberg, and Mary Shapiro, GCBC Chair. The platform, and the partnership, are significant because they align with CIF’s mandate as a learning laboratory for climate finance, which anchors its investment planning, implementation, and learning in evidence drawn from across its portfolio. We look forward to seeing the platform evolve in the much-needed areas of capacity building and knowledge sharing.