Representatives from over 100 countries, international financial institutions and development organizations are meeting in Paris today to discuss a more solidarity-based financial system. This should enable progress in the global fight against poverty and in overcoming the climate crisis.
Participants in the summit organized by French President Emmanuel Macron include EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, China’s Prime Minister Li Qiang, World Bank President Ajay Banga and UN Secretary General António Guterres. African and Asian countries are well represented at the summit.
A double challenge
No binding decisions will be made at the two-day summit. What is expected, however, is a guide to bridging the growing gap between the industrialized countries and the countries of the Global South, which are particularly affected by the consequences of climate change. Topics are the debt relief of these countries and the necessary investments there to cope with global warming.
As Macron said before the meeting, it is about reforming the financial system with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and public and private funds to address the twin challenges of poverty and climate change.
As financial expert Florian Egli from ETH Zurich said before the start of the German Press Agency summit, it is about mobilizing money for measures to reduce emissions that are harmful to the climate, about investments to adapt to climate change, and about payments for damage and losses already incurred. The activist Friederike Röder from the non-governmental organization Global Citizen, who specializes in climate finance, said that a new pact must ensure that funds to deal with the climate crisis can flow in a predictable and timely manner to particularly affected countries in the future.
“Much more needs to be done”
The development organization One asked the meeting to take concrete steps towards a sustainable international financial architecture. Economically weak countries would have to receive money more easily to deal with crises, so far the conditions for granting credit for these countries have often been regulated unfairly. The federal government must therefore put pressure on reforms of development institutions such as the World Bank.
Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency IEA and the International Development Bank IFC wrote before the summit: “Much more needs to be done to ensure that all countries and all sections of society benefit from clean energy technologies.” Investment in emerging markets and developing economies would need to be more than three times higher in the early part of the next decade.
If you exclude China, the financing would have to increase sevenfold. The organizations warned that public funds alone were not enough. Private capital can be gained with the help of better data, new financing instruments and credible government plans for the energy transition.
