Representatives agree to advance in the financial structuring of projects and address this gap in climate financing with a view to the next COP 27 in Egypt

Government representatives from several countries in the region, as well as from international organizations, multilateral and private financial institutions, concluded this Friday, September 2, the debates of the Roundtable on climate financing and the energy transition in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will be held at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile, with a call to scale up action on climate finance and promote projects and strengthened institutions, ahead of the next COP 27 .

The event, which was held in a hybrid format -face-to-face and virtual-, was one of the five Regional Forums on Climate Initiatives to Finance Climate Action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), preparatory to the 27th period of sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), which are promoted by the United Nations System, the incoming Egyptian Presidency of COP27 and the UN High-Level Climate Change Champions.

On its second and last day, the participants exchanged experiences on sustainable and equitable supply chains of essential and strategic minerals for the energy transition, and initiatives on climate financing for resilience in the small island developing States (SIDS) of the Caribbean. and other vulnerable States, in two separate panels that included the participation of authorities, leading specialists and representatives of public and private financial institutions.

“We need everyone to roll up their sleeves and dive in to work on these issues. Our hope is that between now and COP27 we can move some of these projects to show the best of Latin America at a global level”, declared Nigel Topping, COP 26 Climate Change Champion at the close of the meeting. “I thank ECLAC and the team of champions for the climate in Latin America for having organized such a productive round table,” he added.

For his part, Ambassador Wael Aboulmagd, Special Representative of the President-designate of COP 27, indicated that it is time to move from negotiation to implementation. “We must now collectively focus on the full and active implementation of the Paris Agreement, as well as ensuring effective follow-up to the commitments announced at Glasgow (COP26),” he emphasized.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Mohieldin, Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Climate Change Champion COP27, reaffirmed that “we must try to focus on the application and alignment of policies towards climate action and the Goals of Sustainable Development (SDG). Basically, the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda have to be integrated,” he said.

Closing the meeting, the Director of ECLAC’s Sustainable Development and Human Settlements Division, Joseluis Samaniego, highlighted that during the seminar many opportunities were analyzed in the three sectors considered (renewable energy, mobility and mining); He indicated that the preliminary compendium of investment projects in climate action for Latin America and the Caribbean (which so far includes 55 initiatives) presented during the meeting will undoubtedly be enriched by the discussion.

“We can arrive with a better compendium at COP 27, in order to continue working on it. It will be a practical instrument for the interaction between the financial sector and the projects. We are committed to improving it in every detail, and improving it methodologically as well,” he said.

Likewise, he emphasized that one of the main conclusions of this seminar is that “the entire institutional framework is overwhelmed: both the financial one and the institutional framework for the creation of the projects. We have to find a way to deal with that overload so we can pick up the pace. One way is to build institutions in the form of green investment banks, so that projects become ideas that can be financed, and do not remain just projects. That is why it is so important to sit down at the table with the representatives of the financial sector, be it development, be it multilateral, but also the private sector that will finally interact with the projects. That is a field to be strengthened in this type of seminars”, he concluded.