Real COP27 failure is absence of commitments on long-term climate finance
The HinduPublished : Dec 01, 2022 10:25 IST As COP27, the climate summit at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, ended after being extended by more than a day, assessments of what it achieved were mixed. The text on long-term climate finance, after noting “with deep regret that the goal of developed country Parties to mobilize jointly USD 100 billion per year by 2020… has not been met”, attributes it partly “to challenges in mobilizing finance from private sources”. “The International Energy Agency estimates that as much as two-thirds of future collective climate investments will have to occur in developing countries.” The bulk of the expenditure would have to be made in developing countries. The decision document on finance merely “urges” developed countries to provide “enhanced support” and calls for reform of multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to align with climate goals and scale up ambition. Since private finance will be reticent to enter most areas involving mitigation or adaptation investments, the implementation plan calls on multilateral development banks and international financial institutions “to mobilise climate finance from various sources” and to use “the breadth of their policy and financial instruments for greater results, including on private capital mobilization”.