COP27 Report: Developing Nations Need $1 Trillion Yearly to Fight Climate Change

A report released ahead of the COP27 cli­mate sum­mit in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, found devel­op­ing coun­tries will need to secure $1 tril­lion per annum in exter­nal finance to cut emis­sions, boost their resilience and restore nature and land dam­age caused by cli­mate change by the end of the decade.

“The world needs a break­through and a new roadmap on cli­mate finance that can mobi­lize the $1 tril­lion in exter­nal finance that will be needed by 2030 for emerg­ing mar­kets and devel­op­ing coun­tries other than China,” the report said.

The report, jointly com­mis­sioned by the gov­ern­ments of Egypt and the United Kingdom, the cur­rent and pre­vi­ous cli­mate sum­mit hosts, sug­gested that devel­op­ing coun­tries and emerg­ing mar­kets col­lab­o­rate with devel­oped coun­tries and mul­ti­lat­eral insti­tu­tions to raise the $1 tril­lion required annu­ally.

“Unlocking sub­stan­tial cli­mate finance is the key to solv­ing today’s devel­op­ment chal­lenges,” said Vera Songwe, one of the report’s authors. ​“This means coun­tries must have access to afford­able, sus­tain­able low-cost financ­ing from the mul­ti­lat­eral devel­op­ment banks to help crowd in invest­ments from the pri­vate sec­tor and phil­an­thropy.”

Specific steps should be fol­lowed to unlock the nec­es­sary invest­ment, includ­ing rapidly prepar­ing invest­ment projects, expand­ing the scope of con­ces­sional finance, and tack­ling the debt and liq­uid­ity issues devel­op­ing coun­tries face.

The report fur­ther esti­mated that devel­op­ing coun­tries should match the $1 tril­lion from out­side sources with their own funds to secure an amount of more than $2 tril­lion yearly.

It also clar­i­fied that the $1 tril­lion in exter­nal fund­ing is sep­a­rate from the $100 bil­lion per annum wealthy coun­tries com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing from 2020 to sup­port less afflu­ent coun­tries in tack­ling the effects of cli­mate change. However, the plan­et’s rich nations have not met the $100 bil­lion pledges.

Meanwhile, allo­cat­ing funds to poorer coun­tries to com­bat cli­mate change has been a cause of con­tention at COP27, with less devel­oped coun­tries claim­ing that rich coun­tries should take much of the strain of cli­mate change.

“We have to go round the world with a beg­ging bowl for some­thing that is our right,” said Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s cli­mate change min­is­ter. ​“Justice means that those coun­tries which caused global warm­ing must pay. They must take respon­si­bil­ity.”

• Reuters
• All Africa
• The Wall Street Journal