Yes, Banks Are (Also) Fighting Against Climate Change!
published on 25 September 2018
The contribution to the fight against climate change made by the IDFC club of the 23 largest development banks has doubled since COP21. A necessary scaling-up announced on 26 September in New York during the One Planet Summit follow-up meeting.
The contribution to the fight against climate change made by the IDFC club of the 23 largest development banks has doubled since COP21. A necessary scaling-up announced on 26 September in New York during the One Planet Summit follow-up meeting.
Those who imagine major international summits as lounges where everyone chats without taking action are seriously misguided: since COP21 in Paris in December 2015, the IDFC network of the 23 largest national and regional development banks has doubled its financing for the fight against climate change. And the amounts committed are anything but symbolic: financing allocated to the climate rose from USD 100bn at the end of 2014 to some USD 200bn in 2017.
These figures, from IDFC’s latest Green Finance Mapping for 2017, have just been presented at the One Planet Summit follow-up meeting in New York on this 26 September. They show IDFC’s full commitment to low-carbon and climate-resilient sustainable development, 100% aligned with the Paris Agreement. Its Chair, the Chief Executive Officer of Agence Française de Développement (AFD) Rémy Rioux, talks about the crucial role played by inclusive investment in the fight for the climate:
Development banks such as those of the IDFC club have the responsibility of contributing to the collective action required to fight against climate change. The commitment of IDFC members to smart climate solutions is an irreversible commitment. As a platform for investments in sustainable development projects all over the world, IDFC is always proactive when it comes to boosting action for the climate and contributing to the massive redirection of financial flows. It is in this context that the USD 1bn required for the transition towards sustainable development are mobilized.
China, represented in IDFC by the China Development Bank (CDB), is the largest contributor to the club’s climate commitments. With a total amount of USD 220bn if all the relevant “green” financing is included, this financing flows in a circular manner: at domestic level within countries, in both a North-South and South-South circuit. Financing for climate change adaptation projects, for its part, has doubled in absolute value to USD 10bn.
The new dimension taken on by the network’s climate finance is crucial for maintaining the efforts made up until now, as explained by Patrick Dlamini, Chief Executive Officer of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and co-Chair of IDFC:
After decades of relentlessly fighting to obtain results for development in the field, particularly in poor and vulnerable contexts, the members of the club are aware that the progress achieved is directly threatened by climate change.
The IDFC Green Finance Mapping study is based on the Common Principles for Climate Change Adaptation Finance Tracking, defined by multilateral development banks and IDFC. The highly respected think-tank Climate Policy Institute (CPI) checks the reliability of the data which are subsequently presented in an aggregated form.
Consult the summary of the study:
For further reading:
One Planet Summit: What results one year on?
One Planet Summit: Our concrete commitments
Jean Jouzel: “It is not too late for the climate”
