For our 14th episode, I invited Dr Mahmoud Mohieldin to discuss the climate finance divide and how to overcome it. The climate finance divide is the gap between the funding needed and funding available to tackle the global climate crisis. It is particularly stark in developing and emerging economies, as these countries face high levels of debt and limited sources of public revenue. Because developing countries are responsible for far less of the Co2 emissions than developed countries, yet suffer more from the consequences of it, bridging the climate finance divide calls for international solutions. My guest just returned from COP29 and shares his insights from there and from his career dedicated to finance and international development. Dr Mahmoud Mohieldin is an economist who has held roles as Executive Director of the IMF Group, Senior Vice President at the World Bank and Minister of Investment of Egypt. Currently, he is UN Special Envoy for Financing the 2030 agenda.
Links
·
· Third report of the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance (November 2024)
· Remarks by World Bank Group President Ajay Banga at the 2023 Annual Meetings Plenary
· The Guardian’s analysis of the operationalization of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement at COP29
· 2024 Implementation Report on the Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda
· Text of the Paris agreement (2015)
Timestamps
On some podcast players, you should be able to jump to the section by clicking:
(01:46) - Mahmoud Mohieldin introduces himself
(03:53) – Climate finance is insufficient, inefficient, and unfair
(07:46) – Bias against adaptation finance
(13:12) – Debt-for-climate-swaps
(14:37) – Bilateral and multilateral financing institutions as risk mitigators or credit enhancers
(16:25) – Perceived risk vs real risk in developing and emerging markets
(17:39) – The role of guarantees to bring in more private capital
(19:46) – COP29 in Baku
(20:43) – Article 6 of the Paris Agreement
(21:45) – The NCQG (New Collective Quantified Goal for climate finance)
(24:46) – Policy developments in the United States / Inflation Reduction Act
(31:59) – The Sharm-El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda
(33:53) – Blended finance
Contact
For feedback on the show or to suggest guests for future episodes, contact us at scifi@esmt.org
