Climate Finance - Solutions Dialogues, Climate Summit 2026

So, good afternoon. Please, Selwyn.

No. So, I was patiently waiting for the moderators but it's late in the day but I really want to thank all of you for being here and to be part of this really important finance solution dialogue. And the finance solution dialogue is the last of the solution dialogues today because it brings everything together, everything that we've been discussing, adaptation, the energy transition, methane. And in this room, every part of the financial system is represented. Governments, multilateral development banks, climate funds, development finance institutions, philanthropies, and the private sector. We're in the first year of the second decade of the Paris Agreement. This COP marks the beginning of the second decade of implementation of the Paris Agreement. And over the course of that first decade, since the adoption of the agreement, progress has been made. MDBs are doing a lot more. Not enough, but a lot more. Climate funds are delivering more resources. Private investment is growing. And thanks to our colleagues from Azerbaijan, we were able to agree on a new finance goal just two years ago. But as I said, we're still not where we need to be. And if we're going to accelerate the energy transition, not only for climate purposes, but to ensure energy access, energy security, independence, and take profit of the lowering costs of renewable energy, we really need the finance system to work as a system. So I really want this dialogue, and I really encourage all of you, and I've said this repeatedly. I know you have really great prepared statements. No, no, no. I want this dialogue to focus on four interdependent challenges and some might say opportunities, scale, access, affordability and impact. There's no real scale if finance can't be accessed. Access means little if the terms are unaffordable or deepen debt distress, and greater volumes mean little unless they deliver real impact. These are not four separate problems or challenges. This is one challenge. I want to hear solutions. Those prepared statements, please cast them aside. How do we dramatically increase public and private finance? while directing far more towards the developing world. And developing countries are not a monolithic group. There are differences. How do we simplify access and shorten time timelines? How do we lower the cost of capital, tackle debt and create fiscal space? Countries need to invest both on the adaptation and on the mitigation side. And how do we build on the innovations that are already showing what is possible, those innovations that emerge over the course of the first decade of implementation of the Paris Agreement, the pre-enriched finance, the debt for climate and debt for nature swaps, the climate resilient debt clauses, and I see Pat and Avi, you know, you guys have done a lot in that space, so I don't expect you to read any of your prepared notes? And how do we ensure that every dollar that is invested, it gets greater impact? The reality is that a decade on, we know the gaps and we know what the solutions are. So how do we deliver speed and scale on these four interrelated challenges and opportunity? With that, I give the floor to my colleague and very good friend, the Secretary General Special Envoy on Financing for Development, Mahmoud, the floor is yours to help us set the scenes and then our two distinguished colleagues and moderators will take over the job of moderating what I know will be an excellent and fruitful discussion. Mahmoud, the floor is yours.

Right, good afternoon, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure and honor to have this task of trying to set the scene, though that my good friend Selwyn already did that and raised the expectations as well of what he is expecting from this session, not just him, everyone participating. So I know that I'll be stopped at some stage abruptly, so I'll just, we'll share with you at the beginning my intentions. I'll be talking about the three lines of defense, the mitigation, the adaptation, and dealing with the challenges related to the loss and damage. And many of us heard our Secretary General reflecting on the those three areas this morning. Then with the good work of my good friend Amar Bhattacharya and his colleagues, There are some inputs of relevance that started actually when we're preparing for COP27 in Egypt a few months after Glasgow and with the establishment of the independent high level experts group that served the COP27, COP28. And then, of course, from Baku to Belm, they highlighted the gaps of finance and how to do some proper work in bridging the gap, including the promise of the 1.3 trillion. And now we have three pillars that I'll be discussing. If I'm successful in doing that, I'll just go through a few areas of focus on the deliverables. But I attended the previous session And I would say that the connection between the discussion, the previous session, this one is very clear that the direction of travel is is very much clear unless you want really to make it ambiguous. We are after the delivery of the Paris Agreement, but the pace and the effective mobilization of funds and the means of implementation are leaving a lot, uh, to be desired, this shouldn't really be perceived. or understood as any kind of ignoring or undermining some of the important work that individual institutions have been doing during the last few years, but collectively there are gaps when it comes to the quantity of finance, quality of finance, speed and the terms of finance, especially the cost of capital facing developing economies and emerging markets. This is a much closer to what Serwan just mentioned now on the expectations when it comes to scale, the reach or access, speed and impact. So based on this three pillars, simple approach that is being developed, based on the work that we learned from Baku to Berlin and beyond, building as well on the preparation of COP31 with the country of famous or bridges, there are areas as well of focus in this area on how to connect the ambitious targets with the means of funding. The first pillar is country-led investment for sustainable growth, climate and resilience. That could be translated in having country platforms. And this has been emphasized in different approaches of work. We have been seeing many promises from many countries, but there are areas here about seriousness of these country platforms and to what extent there is a buy-in in, even after their announcements, collectively by government, by the society, and whether we have an adequate finance starting with the budget. Because as we have seen in many plans, many strategies, many NAPS, many indices, there are many objectives being outlined. There are many strategies out there. But people with simple minds and practical approaches to life coming from my farming background will ask a simple question. If it is not in the budget, it doesn't exist. If the ministers of finance are not seeing it as a priority with their parliaments, there is something that is really very much missing. Using the good wisdom of the former Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, you can always share your affection and love to something and you call it a priority. And you can be even guided by the Beatles song, All You Need Is Love. But in our area and project finance, we might need to resort to the good, another song, quoting again, Melvin King, in a very serious discussions at the IMFC of the IMF, that you can go to the ABBA when they are really singing money, money, money. So here, money coming from public sources, private sources, and from philanthropies need to get together. Then you get this kind of articulation of demand from the country platforms. And be mindful that many of these country platforms might be, might be, not all of them, but few of them could be just empty promises if they are not backed with the government budgets and the state budget, national budget. And I would say today, given that everybody's talking about impact at the local level, local budgets, you need to question the integrity of the country platform. The second pillar is basically about, which is related to the second kind of argument that we are saying here, we need to deliver as one and we need to deliver with high scale. Delivering as one also means connecting the coalitions to country priorities. And of course, we are talking to people who are very much familiar with the landscape of climate finance. But if you are an outsider doing something different from climate finance, you will be very much overwhelmed about the many coalitions that you need really some good guidance on how to deal with them. So matters related to connectivity between these kind of initiatives and the coalitions will be very much helpful. So the gap here between global initiatives and the country level delivery could be bridged. For example, energy transition is not simply about renewable generation. It requires grid storage, efficiency, access, transmission, industrial demand, and appropriate finance. And it's not just here we are talking about climate finance. I hope that this old tension that I have seen and suffered from, and I complained about it to the SG, to Selwyn, to every friend, to the DSG, Aminah Muhammad, that we are creating these kind of unnecessary competing clubs who are not talking to each other as a climate club and a development club. While again, all of these kind of actions, if they are serious, any kind of action in climate is on substance and impact as a development action. So there is no need for any kind of unnecessary tension there. Our good friend, Nick Stern, spent some good time explaining that in a whole book about growth and its relation to climate and how climate action and climate finance is the growth engine of this century. But this is just on the mitigation front, which is the first line of defense. Likewise, in adaptation, it's not simply about individual resilience projects. It requires infrastructure, water systems, agricultural disaster preparedness, insurance, and social protection to the rest of the Sharm el-Sheikh adaptation agenda. But here, a kind of holistic approach is very much required. And when it comes to the role of the private sector, I'm very happy here to refer to some useful work that GFANs have been doing, especially in how to mobilize private sector finance of higher relevance to the field and looking at its potential with very specific case studies on some serious work of the private sector when it comes to resilience or adaptation. And finally, on the mobilization of affordable finance that require this kind of capital stack. If you are doing well in the first pillar, if you forgot already, this is about the country-led investment, the country platforms, and if you are doing well in the coordination in the different coalitions, here we'll have the good answer. that the 1.3 trillion might be flowing in a way that is going to be dealing with the old suffering of finance to be insufficient, inefficient, and unfair for it to be dealing with it by being more affordable in terms of the terms of funding. But we need here the following. We need a broader menu beyond just mentioning the quantity and we don't really go and fall into these all bad arguments. Do we need more finance or quality finance? We cannot do more with less. We need to do both. We need to do better and with that we'll need bigger funding. Grants and concession finance were appropriate, as were guarantees and risk-sharing instruments, local currency finance, debt poses and state-contingent instruments, debt for climate and debt for nature approaches. We need to realise the potential of prearranged finance and insurance for resilience, and, last but not least, private finance, which can generate sustainable commercial returns, especially in some of the hard areas to resilience and adaptation. Let me close my remarks by what Selwyn raised. And it's good that we have a kind of a review mechanism of whether these pillars, the three pillars, are working or not. So there is under construction that could be shared at the country level. And I know many have been working in these areas of assessment of the work in the field where it matters, scale, answering a simple question, is finance large enough relative to the needs? Speed, is implementation accelerated fast enough? Reach, is finance reaching the country's sectors, communities, and implementing actors that needed the most? And impact at the local level, is finance translating into real economy outcomes or not? Here there are two approaches, one that could be controversial. You do it like the old doing business report of the World Bank, you rank countries, you see who is better than the others, and that can get us into a saga. When I was a minister of investment, that was really very helpful to me. Especially when we're not really doing very well, that was a good way to do the reforms and push for matters not to embarrass the sovereign in an international competition. But it seemed that we are settled not to be that aggressive in assessing our performance by rating and ranking. So the minimum is a kind of a traffic light. Red, God forbid, if we're not doing well. Yellow, if we are progressing in the right direction. And then green for some of us, we hope to be for all of us, if we are achieving the scale, the speed, and the reach, and the impact. Final words here, because I know it's coming from the previous discussion, about the incentives to do all of that. I got it from some serious discussion led by private equity firms with blended finance from the MDBs. And again, this is my second reference to the GFANs, that's work with the BII and BCG on the blended finance work and the good work as well with the MDBs, especially in areas related to adaptation. Here, what we need really to see, and many are here, including the Green Climate Fund, the World Bank, the IFC, EBRD, EIB, African Development Bank, and others, in two cases that I'm very much familiar with, in the case of Egypt and the case of Morocco, when tough regulatory changes and frameworks were required, including tariffs and the regulatory structure, were required by the government, but the government was reluctant to play a game because you cannot just do reform costly, you lose any of your political capital, assuming that you have some, and then after doing these tough reforms, you will get nothing. The beauty of this project is that you incentivize the government when you see the money coming at the same time that you are doing the regulations, so you get the harm of losing some of your political capital that could be hopefully adequately compensated by some funding at the same time. So solutions are there. We need them at scale. We need them to be implemented. And we need to go beyond these clubs that have really frightened and frustrated the efforts. And we'll be relying on you all to provide these answers on how to deliver as one and how to deliver that at scale. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Mahmoud. And it's such a pleasure being here. My name is Barbara Buchner. I'm the CEO of Climate Policy Initiative, and I'm moderating together with my good friend Andre this discussion today. Again, I think I just want to very briefly say, I think we all know there is no need for diagnosis anymore. I think we have entered the era of implementation in climate finance, and it's really important now to build on what is working and identify the solutions that we need to get to scale. So just maybe reminding all of you, as I've seen a few additional colleagues joining us while Mahmoud was speaking, what Selwyn said at the very beginning. Again, we want to hear from all of you. So please, this is not about reading out any statements. You can share them with us. We will make sure that they are part of the report these sessions, but we really want to hear from all of you and we are very privileged to have a very active engagement and a very long list of interested colleagues who want to share their ideas, so please be very concise and help us and make sure that we hear all these voices here in the room. So I'd love to ask you again to focus on the areas that have been laid out, really what are solutions to help us with scale, with access, with affordability and reach, and then with impact. And really help us share your experiences, your solutions and build on that. But with that, also just before handing over to my co-moderator, I do have to say that I'm Austrian, so I will try to keep us really on time. I'm a little stressed because we started 15 minutes late. I'm not used to things like that. And then you paired me with a Brazilian co-moderator, so I will do whatever I can to keep us on time and make sure that you also have a good evening. But looking forward to the discussion, Andre, over to you.

With the reputation of Brazilians, I have to say that it's not my fault that we are late, first. Second, I count on you to be. So, as Selwyn said and as you said, no written statements, please. And we're going to have the first example for us of presentation that stimulates this dialogue, we have His Excellency Ari Sudijanto, who is the Deputy Minister of Environment of Indonesia. Please.

Thank you. Excellencies, from Indonesia, Minister of Environment, we see that the immediate priority is aligning support behind country-led implementation plans Indonesia climate finance priorities are derived from the plans we have already established. Our enhanced NDC, the second NDC, mitigation roadmap, national adaptation plan, subnational implementation pathway, biennial transparency report, and roadmap for means of implementation. These plans identify the action Indonesia intended to deliver. and the need for finance, technology, capacity, data, transparency, and safeguard. This should be a common basis for engagement by MDBs, climate funds, DFIs, donors, national institutions, and private partners. Stronger collaboration should go beyond co-financing individual projects. It should support common country-owned implementation pathway covering project preparation, climatic information, MRV, environmental and social safeguard, capacity development, and result tracking. This must strengthen the national and subnational system rather than create parallel pipelines and duplicative processes. Conventional public finance is most strategic where markets do not adequately deliver. adaptation and resilience, local implementation, data and MRP, safeguard, project preparation, institutional capacity, and early state risk. These are essential condition for credible, measurable climate action, where mitigation investment are viable, risk sharing can help mobilize complementary private capital, provide alignment with national targets and environmental integrity. We should measure success by whether financing enables countries to implement their NDCs and NAPs, reduce vulnerability, deliver credible emission reduction, protect ecosystems, and build durable local capacity, not simply by the volume of capital announcement. Thank you.

Thank you very much. So I would like to invite The Minister of Finance for Pakistan, Mr. Muhammad Ariz.

Thank you. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, I did have a prepared statement, which I'm doing away with under your advice. We don't need to spend time on the what and why. As was very aptly described, Pakistan is fifth on the vulnerability climate index. We have had floods in '22, we have floods in '25, heat waves, LOF incidents. We are living it. Now, it's really the how part of it. And in the first instance, I think the responsibility of the government in coming up with the policy framework, the National Adaptation Plan, the National Disaster Response Plan, the forecast, and early warning signals, especially now with respect to LOFs, the climate prosperity plan, which we have prepared in conjunction with the V20, and coming up with investable bankable projects, and our central bank rolling out the green taxonomy, because that's an important enabler as we go forward. Now, as a finance minister, a few things from my side in terms of the financing part of it. In any country, before we start reaching out, and asking for external help, the macro stability and the fiscal and external buffers that you need to have in your own country are absolutely critical. And I give a very specific example. In '22, when our economy was in slight trouble and that flooding happened, we went running to Geneva for international pledges. Last year's flood, October 25 was more severe in terms of the provinces and the number of rivers involved. But given because we were in a much better macro situation, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet decided that we are going to use our own resources for rescue, relief, rehabilitation, and to a certain extent, reconstruction. So that's number one. We all have to be responsible as countries ourselves before we look for external help. But we do need external help. And that's where the MDB support. I'm very grateful to Ajay and his team. We went into a 10-year country partnership framework with the World Bank Group. And there are three verticals, and one of that vertical has to do with climate change, which entitles us to $700 million of funds available for decarbonization, climate resiliency for the next 10 years. Similarly, Asian Development Bank, which has stepped up with IMF, we are in an extended program with them, but we also have an RSF facility of $1.2 billion. So that's the MDB part. But we also, it was important for us to also go for market access. So in May of this year, we did the inaugural Panda Bond. And this was a green bond, which is moving towards all green projects, especially in terms of water resources. We are working with the PE funds and the VC funds as we move forward. So there are different avenues, and this, from my perspective, is not and/or. This is an and/and discussion, using our own resources and using MDBs, using capital markets, and using the new economy. The last thing, and I say that with a lot of respect and humility, with the Green Climate Fund, the loss and damage fund, which when Pakistan was sharing the G77 and in Sharm el-Sheikh, you know, that was started. Unfortunately, the operationalization of that is still work in progress. And with respect to Green Climate Fund, again, I say with a lot of respect and humility, please, bring down the level of bureaucracy, even getting accreditation process going. And we in the country are also large bureaucracies. But even before we start talking about disbursements, even the accreditation process. So in any transformation is people, process, technology. Ladies and gentlemen, excellencies, I thank you for your patient hearing. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Minister. It's wonderful to have the Minister of Finance here. As you remember, my Minister of Finance in the preparation of COP30 created the circle of ministers of finance. This is absolutely essential for the implementation of everything that comes from the COPs. So I would like to invite the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Environment of Palau, who is going to speak on behalf of AOSIS.

Thank you, moderator.

AOSIS would like to provide three points on delivering as one.

First, the need for inter-polarity across the climate finance architecture.

We should move toward greater harmonization and mutual recognition of processes, including accreditation, fiduciary standards, safeguards, and reporting requirements.

A country that has already demonstrated.

The required capacity to one climate fund should not have to repeatedly prove the same capacity to another. We should also expand direct access and make greater use of national systems, including direct budget support where appropriate.

This approach has strengthened country ownership, reduced.

Transaction cost, and allowed finance to respond more directly to nationally determined priorities, including NDCs and NAPs.

Second, coordination.

MDBs and multilateral funds should.

Coordinate their pipelines, project preparation, co-financing, and concessional resource around country-led investment priorities, rather than creating parallel project development process.

Concessional public finance should be deployed strategically to reduce risk and the cost of capital, but this must not become a justification for shifting responsibility from public finance to private capital, particularly for adaptation and resilient investment where commercial returns may be limited. And finally, coordination to remove systematic barriers that is beyond climate finance.

Themselves.

MDB financing models, debt sustainability frameworks, credit rating methodologies, and eligibility criteria all influence whether countries can access and afford climate finance. These systems must better recognize climate vulnerability and special circumstance of SIDS. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Minister. I would like to invite Ms. Talye Gbadegesin, CEO of SIF, to address us, please.

Thank you. Thank you very much for having me today. And I do have prepared statements, so I will try to put them away and just make some brief remarks on the issue of systems. And the fact that ultimately to achieve transformation across both energy systems and resilience, it is about investing in a system oriented way and with the SIF since inception. has been investing in a programmatic way with countries to allocate funding across the system transformation, investing in policy, regulation, in the assets themselves and how those assets integrate, and doing that across clean energy. We do this investing in renewable energy, transmission, distribution, storage, industry decarbonization, as well as finance. But what we find today is with scarce concessional finance, we are asked to mobilize private capital alongside concessional capital, both for energy, for resilience, and increasingly for nature. This works very well in line with the country platform approach. Every country has a different methodology that they may use for a country platform working with the National Development Bank, a certain delivery mechanism. But what we are seeing from evidence as we've assessed the role of our technical assistance, as we've assessed how we've provided capacity to countries through the system-based transformation, is that the strongest form of sustainability with finances when ministries of finance are anchored in that process, which means that as we go forward, the link between ministries of environment, agriculture, water, energy, and ministries of finance toward energy transition as well as resilience becomes very crucial. And that has been stated here. And we must reinforce that collaboration and partnership that's intrinsic to the national system. But there's also the extrinsic financial system around the credit ratings, around Basel, around the financial environment that these countries are going to operate in. That also must be addressed as well. And let me speak then about ultimately the issue of the capital stack blended finance. all our institutions and multilateral climate funds will be drawn toward blended finance and using our concessional capital alongside private capital. But this also means that countries need to build out that skill set of integrating private capital into their planning. We've also seen that technical assistance is most effective when it is used to strengthen financial systems of countries, building out green bond framework, financial systems, for example, central banks that are creating taxonomies, tying that to pension fund systems, banking systems. That is the financial architecture that's going to be crucial for delivering that transformation. I hope, colleagues, excellencies, distinguished friends, that those remarks are natural enough for this conversation. Thank you.

Thank you, dear Terry. Now I would like to invite the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Yalchin Rafiyev, who have worked so closely in the preparation of COP30 and on the Baku to Berlin. Thank you. Go ahead.

Thank you, dear Andrea, dear colleagues, distinguished friends. Climate finance stands at the core of climate action. Its availability, affordability, and accessibility are prerequisites for effective action, particularly for developing countries that are willing to act but face resource constraints. So today we started with a song, Abbas' famous song of "Money, Money, Money," and I think the developing countries might respond to this with another famous song of Queen, "I Want It All," but not in the meaning of all in terms of the amount, but finance that is affordable, accessible and adequate. So at COP 29 in Baku, parties agreed the Baku finance goal on the mobilization of at least 300 billion US dollars annually by 2035 from a wide range of resources and called for scaling up climate finance for developing countries from all public and private sources to at least 1.3 trillion per year. Parties also tasked Azerbaijan and Brazil to prepare the Paku to Belen roadmap to 1.3 trillion and together with our colleagues from Brazil, with France, we delivered this roadmap ahead of COP 30. The roadmap provides a useful reference point for today's discussion, and it makes clear that scaling climate finance is not only about mobilizing more resources. It means about making the system work better for developing countries through stronger coordination, less fragmentation, and more accessible and effective finance. So in terms of solutions from this perspective, first, system-wide coordination should be a key priority. Today, countries often engage with multiple institutions, instruments, and processes, each with different requirements, standards, and procedures. For many developing countries, navigating these processes can require significant institutional and technical capacity, creating additional transaction costs and delays in accessing finance. We therefore need a system that works more coherently around the needs and priorities of developing countries, rather than requiring countries to navigate a fragmented architecture on their own. The objective should not be to create another layer of bureaucracy, but to better align existing resources and instruments with NDCs, NAPs, and national development strategies. And the second, we should also strengthen coordination among financing institutions. Where several institutions support the same country or program, governments should not have to undergo similar procedures or provide the same information multiple times. Greater use of co-financing and joint approaches where appropriate could help address this and several institutions could come together around a common program applying coordinated procedures and standards. This could reduce administrative burden on the countries while enabling available resources to have greater impact. I thank you.

Thank you, Yotun. I'd like to invite the Vice Minister of the Ministry of External Affairs of India, Sudhakar Dhalela.

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, thank you very much, first of all, Mr. Chair, for giving me the floor. India's approach, excellencies, as regards climate action, has been ambitious. development oriented and guided by the equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, India has achieved NDC targets ahead of schedule with non-fossil resources accounting for over 54% of the installed electricity capacity. I have taken very careful note of what, Mr. Chair, you have mentioned in your opening remarks and also other distinguished moderators. And to my mind, the broader question that we should reflect perhaps is how the development and climate finance architecture can work coherently and deliver affordable finance at scale that, Mr. Chair, you mentioned in your opening remarks. And in that context, I would like to highlight three points for consideration of this group. First is coherence that I spoke about must reinforce country's ownership, not institutional uniformity. Developing countries differ in their development requirements, their needs, financial systems, and institutional capacities. Common templates cannot produce equitable outcomes across diverse circumstances. The financial architecture to our mind must respond to priorities identified through NDCs and national adaptation plans. Developing countries should not have to reshape their priorities to fit the instruments or institutional preferences of finance providers. Second, coherence must not blur the distinction between development and climate finance. A climate finance commitment must be new and additional and not displace development finance.

The goal of at.

Least US$300 billion annually by 2035, with developed countries taking the lead, falls well short of assessed needs. Public, grant-based, concessional, and non-debt-creating finance must remain central. particularly for adaptation, resilience, and loss and damage. Private capital can complement, but not substitute, public climate finance. And thirdly, discussions on project bankability must examine both sides of the equation. Project preparation and capacity building are important, but international financial institutions and private capital providers must also reform their risk assessments, return expectations, and instruments. Finance must be available at affordable cost, in appropriate currencies, and with long tenors, without adding to unsustainable debt burdens. Finally, Mr. Chairman, finance and technology are inseparable enablers of implementation. Without adequate finance and access to critical technologies, climate ambition cannot become climate action. As we seek to deliver as one, Success should be measured not by institutional harmonization, but by whether developing countries receive finance at the scale, the speed, the quality, and cost required to implement nationally determined priorities. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I would like to invite the Minister and Assistant to the President. and Environment, Republic of Marshall Islands, Mr. Jess Garsd, Jr.

Thank you, Chair, Excellencies, colleagues, Yaqi. The Republic of the Marshall Islands economy is comparatively small, but our climate vulnerability is immense. We have much at stake in getting these conversations on climate finance right and turning commitments into action. For many years now, we have emphasized the need for urgent reform to improve access to finance, especially for SIDS and LDCs. Our country has already faced profound challenges due to our small land area, high transaction costs, and distance from other nations. When seeking finance, we are confronted by dozens of funds, banks, and bilateral providers, each with its own eligibility criteria, application formats, and reporting requirements. This is extremely taxing for any developing country, but disabling for most vulnerable. Our small administrators just cannot field the teams that navigate so many separate, different processes. Many important pledges and commitments have been made to address these issues, including a new collective quantified goal decision. What we need now is action. And the way to get there is to put in place time-bound milestones and a clear process to track implementation and ensure accountability. What gets measured gets managed. There is already an initiative for joint reporting on MDB climate finance, for example. Can we expand on this initiative beyond tracking volumes to also tracking metrics related to access? Can we replicate and formalize this gathering where the senior leadership of multilateral funds are asked to join us and explain the progress they have made and what they're going to do next? On adaptation finance and loss and damage, developing countries have repeatedly emphasized the need for this to be primarily grants-based. especially in the context of remote atoll island nations like mine. The prospect of mobilizing private finance for adaptation is simply unrealistic. Can we also track the proportions of grant-based adaptation finance and set targets to improve it? Change is happening. The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage has led the way on mutual recognition, extending recognition of access entities already accredited to GCF. GEF, and AF. This step represents an important transfer of administrative burden away from the most vulnerable and onto the institutions designed to serve us. What is holding back other institutions from following this example? For the Marshall Islands, accessing finance will be ever more important as climate impacts continue to barrel down upon us. We are glad to take these opportunities to recognize the progress that has been made and ensure we continue pushing ahead to make the system fit for purpose. Como Tala, and I thank you.

Thank you. I would like to invite Mafalda Duarte from the GCF, please.

Okay. Once again, the first task is to get the button right. Thank you very much for inviting us to this important discussion. Just a few remarks. We all know, as was said, we don't need more diagnosis. We don't need more information about the needs. The world committed in Baku and Berlin to the 1.3 trillion a year of climate finance. And we also know very well that this is only going to be achieved by a combination of domestic resources, private capital, MDBs and other DFIs, and the concessional finance, highly concessional finance that is from the multilateral climate funds. So Now, a lot of points that have been made, Mahmoud, you mentioned country platforms. So if we talk a little bit more upstream, Brazil is actually a great example of how the country, how we can anchor a process led by the country and the country defining its strategic priorities the country understanding what might be the impediments from a regulatory point of view and taking action on those while at the same time leading a process of identifying what are the critical partners that they would like to bring forward to invest in the three strategic priorities they identified under the platform. And through that process, identify as well What was then the role of concessional capital, highly concessional risk capital of funds like, uh, GCF? So this is a, a, a very good example. I agree with you that the critical point now is provide, bring the system to support the other countries that want to follow a similar path according to their national circumstances in getting to that same point. So I think that, and we do have a significant interest in terms of the interest that has been expressed through GCF in supporting country platforms. We have 31 countries that have expressed interest in being supported. But again, this is not to come up with a country program for a specific institution. I think we need to move away from that, but it's a country program of the country where the multiple partners and financial institutions come to provide the support that they have a comparative advantage to support with. So I think this is it. Again, I don't know if the representatives of Brazil, besides Ambassador Coelho Lago, will be speaking to the example of the Brazil Country Platform, but it's a good example that many want to follow, tailored to their specific circumstances. Now, Minister of Palau mentioned interoperability and shared due diligence. So on the one hand, we are talking about country platforms. This is upstream to coalesce strategically the different partners under the country ownership and leadership. And then we are talking about investments. And we all know very well that we do need to find the processes through which we agree, not just among the MDBs, but among the MDBs and the funds and among all of these development financial institutions and private sector when we are working with private sector on what is this interoperability. Can we have a common due diligence? It is well known, we have just gone through a process, a very large project finance of $6 billion very large project finance with many different institutions, MDBs, private sector, ourselves, and others, and different institutions with different policies, with different requirements, that makes the due diligence process double, multiple times, in terms of the length of that process. So there's more to be done, much more to be done. We do know that it is already happening, for example, when MDBs are together in certain projects that they agree with a common due diligence, but that needs to be expanded to be more a systematic effort within the MDBs. But in large project finance, normally there are multiple financiers. So even if the MDBs together agree on interoperability, we need that to be expanded to all of the financiers inside that project finance. So we are quite committed to contribute to this agenda, as was mentioned as well by the Marshall Islands representative. We have accredited, we have reformed our accreditation process. The Minister of Pakistan is no longer here. I hope that he will be able to experience this reform and the efficiency. And it was it is great to see that our colleagues from loss and damage are have now benefited from and are taking all of the entities that have been accredited with GCF because it is a process, it is investments, it is not necessary to be duplicating these investments across different institutions. So that is very good to see. And we hope that, again, reforms that are being put in place to drive efficiency across this system, including GCF MDBs, that can all lead to the same type of effort, which is more alignment, more harmonization, because in the end of the day, here we are talking about scale and speed if we don't advance this agenda. And just one final point, because I think it's important to bear in mind one thing. These organizations, the shareholders of these organizations are the governments. And the governments are sitting in the boards of all these organizations. So we need the commitment from the governments in the boards of these organizations, MDBs, climate funds, to push this agenda. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mafalda. But we prefer when you do the advertisement for what Brazil does right. So I would like to invite the Minister of Finance and coordinating the Minister of the Economy of Nigeria, Taiwo Oyedele, please.

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to everyone. It's a pleasure to join you today for what we consider to be a very important conversation. around climate finance and especially how do we get better coordination around climate finance? How do we ensure that this is sustainable? And how do we do this in a way that does not undermine economic development? For us in Nigeria, we're trying to put a strategy together we were thinking about a team that we called the Green Advantage because some of the observations we have made was that we needed more coordination around issues to do with the environment. We have seen instances where there were too much you know, focus on trying to impose new taxes to try and raise money for the environment, which on one hand, the objective is good, but we're clear to ourselves that we do not want to sacrifice livelihood for the environment. The outcome you want is the outcome where you're able to preserve livelihood as well as cater for the environment and finance that in a sustainable manner. So that coordination is the process we're currently going through. We do think that at the end of the day, that will enable us to achieve a balance that is good for our country. We believe we must organize climate finance around country priorities because not all countries are the same. The circumstances of every country may well be very different and therefore not putting it in context of what is important to every country can undermine the outcome that we're able to get and ensure that we have credible investment platforms as well as adaptation plans to guide our delivery. We're currently thinking through the El Nino in Nigeria, what are the potential implications of that? perhaps some drought in the north and flood in the south. And we think that the best time to prepare is before a crisis comes. As well as to expand concessional resources, including use of guarantees, local currency finance. One of the analyses we were working on, and we still continue to do that, is that Africa, for example, is perhaps the only continent, clearly one of the only major continents that has no international reserve currency. So whenever we have to finance anything, we have an added risk in Africa of a currency risk. One of the states in Nigeria took some foreign currency loan about three years ago. at the time that local currency was 460 Naira to one US dollars. Today it's about 1,300 plus. So effectively they are paying an interest rate of over 200%. So that clearly is not sustainable. It means as you are thinking about climate finance, what is the trade off? Is that to do with health, is that to do with education, and that's not what we want. We also have been dealing with instances where it's clear that Africa is having to pay more for finance, whether it's to do with climate or with anything. A lot of that is to do with what we call narrative costs or prejudice premium or stereotype tax that is making it more expensive for us to finance anything. We think that the world has a real advantage in Africa in the sense that the carbon footprint of Africa today is one of the lowest. And as we industrialize, we have the choice, with the help of our partners and the international community, to follow a path where our growth does not have to increase the carbon footprint like the other continents did. We also believe that we must use public finance to mobilize private investment because we will not be able to do it from our limited public sector resources and be able to develop bankable energy transition. I think what we have seen with what happened and continues to happen in Iran, unfortunately, is that the world has a concentration risk when it comes to energy. We believe that some countries somewhere around the world must continue to invest responsibly in fossil as we transit into cleaner energy. For us in Nigeria, our transition energy is gas. We believe that the rest of the world needs to invest more in Nigeria, in other countries where we can get affordable energy responsibly as we transit to clean energy. The climate finance must also avoid instances where we are unable to provide access to our people. We don't want to do transition in a way that we leave many people behind in energy poverty. So we think also it has to balance energy access, create jobs, and strengthen food and economic security. In conclusion, core message is developing countries need simpler access to affordable capital and finance, structured in a way that is sustainable and is able to convert national climate plan into investible projects at scale in a sustainable manner. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Minister. I would like to call Ms. Mary Shapiro, who is the vice chair of GFANZ.

The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, or GFANZ, works with financial institutions, governments, and policymakers, and civil society, and development banks to help strengthen the conditions necessary to scale investment and deploy catalytic capital effectively. We are also the home of the Global Capacity Building Coalition, or GCBC, which was launched at COP28 by many of the colleagues in this room with the aim of helping the system work better together, reducing fragmentation and duplication. Together, GFANZ and GCBC demonstrate the value of different parts of the climate finance ecosystem working together to support countries more effectively. We have often seen that the challenge is not a lack of initiatives, but making existing institutions work more effectively in support of country priorities. Our experience suggests four areas for cooperation. First, country ownership is an important organizing principle for these efforts. NDCs provide direction, but many countries need support to translate them into sector plans, policy measures, and investment pipelines. Where governments see value, the use of country platforms may be a tool for bringing together public and private actors around a nationally defined program. Their usefulness depends on government leadership and a credible pathway to implementation. Second, greater interoperability would reduce friction and increase impact. Across the development finance system, there are opportunities for institutions to consider using common project preparation templates, comparable financial and impact metrics, and mutual recognition of due diligence and safeguards where mandates permit. These steps would reduce repeated work while preserving institutional accountability. Third, concessional finance is most impactful when it is deployed catalytically and with precision. Different barriers require different responses. Joint research, which Mahmoud mentioned earlier, from GFANZ, British International Investment, and BCG shows how blended finance structures can tailor the use of catalytic capital to most effectively address the constraints faced by different types of institutional investors. Scarce concessional resources should take risks that markets cannot without subsidizing or crowding out what markets can finance alone. And finally, we should consider capacity building as a foundational part of financing architecture. Research by GCBC suggests that support is more effective when it is demand led, sustained, and linked to practical finance outcomes. This can help local institutions better assess opportunities, structure transactions, and engage international capital. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mary, and thank you so much, Andre. I'm being abandoned, but do not worry, I'm not leaving you. I'm going to get hopefully through all the interventions. I do want to remind you only that we have to leave this room at 6:40 latest. So in the interest of making sure that we really hear everyone, I would ask you to be as concise as possible. And with that, it's my pleasure to invite Mr. Daniel Best, the president of the Caribbean Development Bank, to take the floor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And in keeping with the admonition from the ASG to discard my prepared remarks and in following the musical theme that Mamou set for us earlier, I would reference perhaps the greatest calypsonian to come out of the Caribbean, the Slinger Francisco, the mighty sparrow who told us, you can't love without money. And you can't make love on hungry belly. And so looking at the four areas that have been identified for us by the ASG, Chair, I want to continue the point my father made with respect to countries sitting on the boards of the multilateral funds as well as the MDBs and the role that they rightly have to play. And with that, I would want to use this platform first to commend the government of Canada and in speaking to plausible solution that they have put forward since we are speaking about solutions this evening. The government of Canada, Prime Minister Kearney signed off on a portfolio credit guarantee to the Caribbean Development Bank of $200 million dollars. Which will increase our our scale of financing by four to up to $450 million dollars. Speaking to your first pillar of scale. Uh and this is a practical step that governments can take without increasing their debt burden, which will have a direct impact on the development imperatives in small island developing states. The next point I want to make, Chair, is, and I must confess, I will chaise there afterwards, I'm a little disappointed that the head of GCF did not speak to the innovative and catalytic role that the regional platform for catalyzing climate action in the Caribbean is taking. It is the first of its kind globally. And it is advanced from the GCF's readiness program. And we have, at this point, up to 10 countries have signed on to it. But, Chair, while we focus on transportation and the just energy transition under this, up to 60% of these pooled resources will focus on moving investment, the investment priorities and pipelines of countries. into actual implementable projects and programs. It is taking a programmatic approach in the countries, but also it will develop regional public goods for the Caribbean. I want to also make the point that within this, the regional platform, there's technical assistance geared at project preparation, feasibility studies, regulatory strengthening, which has been identified earlier as an Achilles heel to the development platform. But it also focuses on human capital development, which we, you know, we need desperately in the region, including scholarships, curricular development, and strengthening national planning and stakeholder engagement, while also affording countries to engage with financing networks regionally and internationally. This is what impact and scale looks like. We cannot continue to work as individual countries. And the regional platform affords countries the opportunity to use concessional financing to scale impact. At COP30, I called it a beacon of progress and optimism, and I still think it is such, and I believe it is one that we can draw on globally, the example of the Caribbean in attempting to shape our own destiny through concessional financing. I want to close here with calling out another multilateral fund and the matter of access. And in doing so, you know, someone told me a long time ago, you know how you figure out what someone wants? Just ask them. And earlier this year, in discussions with my dear brother, Ibrahima, from the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, we were grappling with the matter of how do we get countries in the Caribbean to submit proposals under the BIM. At the point, only one proposal was being prepared and coming out of the, to come out of the Caribbean. And I told him, he needs to pack his bag, bring his team, come to the Caribbean, and have a workshop. The Caribbean Development Bank will convene its members in Barbados, have a workshop, and walk them through what an actual application process is like. At the end of that workshop, he left with 16 proposals being prepared. We need to stop talking to each other in rooms like these and talk to the people who actually want to hear from us. With that, I thank you for your kind attention, Chair.

Thank you so much for sharing some concrete examples and really some ways forward. Really appreciate that. With that, my pleasure to call on Ambroise Fayolle, who is the Vice President at the European Investment Bank.

Yeah.

Thanks a lot, Barbara, and I'll try to help you with the timing. The title of our session is on mobilizing affordable finance at scale. That scale means I'm not going to mention excellent ideas that are not at scale, like debt swap for natures that requires specific conditions. We did a great operation in Barbados, but that cannot be at scale. What can be at scale is not necessarily something that is related to climate only. And actually, if you want to mobilize resources, and especially private sector resources, what is very important is to reduce the discrepancy between the perceived risk and the real risk. Because when you look at it, from a data point of view, and that's what the GEMS, the Global Emerging Markets Database does, you realize that the real risk is much lower than the perceived risk. And that's something that could significantly help mobilize private resources for financing, including for climate projects. Then what I think is useful, and I will just give three examples, because we have scarce resources, is to use them most strategically to climate projects. Three examples. One, what we can do is to help create markets where they do not exist. There is a big green bond market. It is not a market that is extremely abundant in many developing countries, and there is no reason for that. So yesterday, here in, in, in, in, in this building, we have announced the launch of the Global Green Bond Initiative, which is an initiative that is going to mobilize up to 20 billion euros to, to have green bonds helping the financing of green projects in emerging and developing countries. especially in countries that have not developed a green bond market. So many thanks to those who have contributed to that, the European Commission, our development finance partner, and of course, the Green Climate Fund. Second, we certainly can invest more in the project preparation targeting climate issues. And that's what we do, for example, with what is called the City Gap Fund. We are now at more than 146 cities, helping over 115 climate smart projects from concept to implementation. Often when you look at cities, this is becoming much more complex and that can help with targeted project preparation to be more at scale with projects targeting cities. And finally, Sometimes it helps to discuss with all stakeholders, and I'm very pleased about the fact that there are diversity in this assembly, because it needs to help us as MDBs also to be doing what is the most useful. And I give you one example. We have been for a long time a very, very big financier of wind farms. When we discussed recently with all the stakeholders, especially the banks, they told us, "We don't need your financing anymore. What we need is your guarantees. We need you to help us because we have the financing. We have limitations, regulatory limitations, that could be alleviated with guarantees." So we have created an instrument that has done, actually, counter guarantees to the guarantees of the banks. That is extremely successful. And we have decided that we would extend that from wind to grids because also grids needs financing. I'll stop there, Barbara. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Ambros, and again, for really sharing some of the concrete solutions. Let me continue with the experiences from MDBs and actually go to Mr. Mark Bowman, who is the vice president for EBRD, also the co-chair of the MDB CAMAT group this year. So the floor is yours, Mark.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Barbara. I'm not going to read from a script. I'm going to make four points, hopefully quite quickly, really sort of along the theme of getting on with delivery, getting on with implementation. So first of all, on our commitment, so earlier this year, EBRD, we agreed, our board agreed our green economy transition strategy for the next five years. We recommitted to our 50% climate finance target. We committed to an ambition, a cumulative target of 150 billion of green finance by our own investment and mobilized investment. And beyond the scale, beyond the kind of targets, a real focus on impact and how we could increase the impact of what we're doing and ensure that our interventions are as transformative as possible. And of course, we see very kind of strong demand from our countries for a variety of different reasons. Second point, you know, we talk a lot about MDBs working together. as a system. I think there's more we can do here, but I think we should acknowledge that we have made progress on this in the last couple of years. I think there's been a kind of renewed amount of political will to make progress. I think what we have done in the last couple of years on mutual reliance is important and an indication that working together, you know, we can make a difference. Third point on country platforms, we all know the need to move from a kind of project by project approach to have a system wide comprehensive approach led by countries. I think this goes to Mafalda's point a bit, that we talk in the abstract about what a country platform needs to be, but actually we've got some pretty good examples out there of what works. They're all different, but Mafalda was talking about Brazil, the EBRD, we've been very proud in the last few years we've supported country platforms in Egypt, in Turkey, in Central Asia, in the Western Balkans, platforms dealing with the energy transition, dealing with industrial carbonization. And we're making progress. And these platforms are all necessarily different, adapting to different circumstances. But I'm confident that we are making progress on this agenda, and we have good examples of what actually works in practice. And then my final point on concessional finance. So the MDB model works most effectively when we use our balance sheets, when we invest money, but we combine that with technical assistance, policy dialogue, and we use relatively small amounts of donor or concessional finance to tackle key blockages, to tackle bankability issues, or to tackle key kind of political economy blockages that only donor money can unlock. When it works well, it's an extremely effective model. We're very aware that donor or concessional money is scarce, but I guess my plea to donors out there is if you have declining budgets, combine it with MDB balance sheets in order to get the most bang for your buck. And of course, on the As an MDB, we have a responsibility to ensure that we use that concessional or donor money as effectively as possible, and that we crowd in the private sector, not crowd out the private sector. I will stop there. Those are four points that hopefully tell a bit of a story about how we are progressing with delivery and implementation.

Thank you so much, Mark, for sharing that. Again, very helpful. Let me now invite Marcos Neto, the Assistant Secretary General and Director of the UNDP's Bureau of Policy and Program Support, to take the floor.

Thank you, Barbara. Thank you, Sherine, Mahmoud, colleagues, ministers, excellencies. couple of points. One, in terms of coordination coming and bringing things together. I think the UN has proved its capacity through the Climate Promise to coordinate and to actually provide governments with a strategic and efficient support. The climate promise was brought together 30 UN agencies and has been responsible to support 107 of the NDCs 3.0 that were put together for last year in Berlin. In that process, we are also able, working with other partners here in MDBs, to bring all the infrastructure of national financial frameworks, like in Nigeria, that there is one behind the indices and the national adaptation plans. So now you actually have 80% of the indices with a cost in place. Now, that is the first step, as Mary Shapiro said, if we want this process, and it must be owned by the countries. We know what the policy is, which is the NDCs, owned by the countries, mostly involves civil society, business, and a lot of partners domestically. That then is already costed with ministers of finance. But Mary is right, that's not enough. How do you move from that ownership to actually transactions, investment pipelines, changes in policies that create an enabling environment for the private capital to come in. That is the key, and that is why the Secretary-General asked UNDP to carry on leading 30 UN agencies on the climate promise forward to help that process going forward. I'm going to give one example, Ethiopia. Because it ties up to a lot of us being talking in terms of country platform. We are a member of the country platform hub. And the government requests UNDP supporting the Ethiopia country platform, anchoring the country's integrated sustainable financing framework that co-led by the Minister of Finance and Planning. Early this year, we facilitate the first multi-partner country platform hub mission and mobilize catalytic pool finance to support operationalization of the platform. by bringing together expertise on climate planning, adaptation, risk finance, project preparation, investment mobilization. The platform is helping convert climate priority in stronger pipelines of bankable investments, while reducing fragmentations, working with the MDBs and the vertical funds that are here. Now, this example is important because that is what needs to be done if we're going to simplify and create a process that allows for the stacking of capital and the coming of the private sector. My last point, it is extremely helpful in this process that the Turkish presidency of incoming COP31 has created what is called the Climate Implementation Bridge. And rather than creating a different infrastructure, The Turkish president has asked us, the UN climate promise, to be the delivery mechanism of the bridge, connecting to examples like in Ethiopia, which is a pilot country for that. The final is Mahmoud's mantra, which I believe profoundly. If it's not in the budget, it doesn't exist. I'm looking at the Minister of Finance of Nigeria. If it's not in the budget, it doesn't exist. 11:00.1 ES: I was in Istanbul on a finance dialogue recently, And it was fascinating because the climate envoy or the climate expert from Kyrgyzstan, from the government of Kyrgyzstan, she was basically saying, supported by UNDP and others, that they have allocated $13 billion into the national budget of Kyrgyzstan for climate action. How many people know that that exists? So public finance is there in the national budget. And when it's not there, we are helping put it. But we need to make sure that everybody that is a financier knows what the governments are putting together, because that is your blended finance. It doesn't have to come from somebody else. Sometimes it's domestic and local currency. Thank you.

Thanks so much, Marcus. And I'm counting on you and Mahmoud to come up with a song that is, if it's not in the budget, it doesn't exist. So next time, we want to hear that one. But thank you so much. Let me now come to some of the banks, the private banks that are in the room. And first call on Mr. Antonio Balabrigo, who is the Global Head of Sustainability, Intelligence, and Advocacy at BBVA. The floor is yours.

Thank you very much. Well, from the perspective of a commercial bank and as COP31 global banking partner, I will make one simple point. There's a substantial private capital available for the transition, but capital will only flow at the scale when projects make economic sense and become bankable. So to close this gap, we will focus on two things or two areas. First, policy frameworks that create predictable cash flows. Governments can fundamentally change investability through three components, predictability and promoting the conditions for bankable revenue models through demand side policies, mandates, carbon pricing mechanisms such as the TTS and public procurement because at the end, banks ultimately finance revenues and cash flows. Second, translate NDCs into investable national transition and adaptation plans, defining national priorities, sectoral pathways and conditions for project development. And third, streamline permitting and treating enabling infrastructure as a precondition for bankability. Second, we need to rethink the role of blended finance. Public capital should be used to mobilize private capital, not to replace it. The objective should be to use the scarce public risk-bearing capacity where it can mobilize the greatest amount of additional private capital. And I think that we need to work on three shifts. One, from public lending to targeted risk sharing. So guarantees and other credit enhancement instruments at a scale can absorb risk that commercial banks cannot officially take and allow private institutions to provide much larger volumes of financing. Two, from fragmentation to more standardization and aggregation. Today, different facilities often have different rules, different documents and processes for commercial banks. This creates relevant transactional costs and complexity. We need common standards in order to repeat structures. And third, we need to move from individual projects, as already mentioned, to country investment platforms. Country platforms can connect national climate priorities with policy reform, project preparation, congestion of resources, and the capacity and private finance. So my central message is that public finance should increasingly be judged not only by how much it lends, but how much effectiveness, change risk, and creates bankability, mobilize additional capital. Thanks.

Thank you so much. And with that, let me now invite Mrs. Rachel Kyte, who is UK's special representative on climate change, current and not only, to take the floor.

Thank you very much. I agree, do not be surprised, with Mahmood Moedeen when he says that we need to do more with more. I think that this is also true because we find ourselves now in a situation where we not only have to finance the energy transition and the everything that comes off that energy transition, so industrial decarbonisation, deforestation, all of this, we have to do it at the same time as we're financing resilient societies. So, we have to create the fiscal headroom for countries to be able to protect themselves at the same time as they are trying to drive forward green competitiveness. And I think that for too long in the 11 years since we agreed the Paris Agreement, we've seen these two things in splendid isolation. and they have now come together in a quite horrible way this year. Added to that, we have a situation in which the extraordinary events on the border between Nepal and China have brought into fast relief the fact that the financial mechanisms that we have built for environment and climate financing, the multilateral climate funds et cetera, working off the back of the multilateral development bank system, were built for a slow onset climate crisis, not for the immediate and extraordinary events that we saw. And so we have to build some flexibility and some agility into the multilateral climate finance system at the same time as we need to ask more and more of the MDBs. Now, they're very able to do it, and we've seen, for example, extraordinary analysis that, if we were to re-rate the MDBs, that would free up 600 to 800 billion of headroom and capital that could be deployed. So, the question to me is, not that we have to go through, as Barbara said at the beginning of the session, a re-diagnosis of everything that we need to do. We've got lots of diagnosis of what needs to be done from previous G20s, from the Bridgetown initiatives one, two and three, and other initiatives. The question now is ordering that into a to-do menu and working at it systematically at the level of financial architecture. at the level of the leveraging of private finance, and that goes to the points made by others around the GEMS database, the transparency, bringing down the gap between real risk and perceived risk, and then very specific things that can be done around the financing of specific pieces of the economy. getting more equity into certain parts of the puzzle, getting domestic banks invested in their own transitions in a way that they're not at the moment. We hold the G20 coming at the end of this year, and we are looking, I think, carefully at how we use the stewarding of the G20 to take many of the things that have been negotiated and agreed or produced from many initiatives that many people in this room have sat in and sort of turn that into a to-do list and to see whether or not we can drive forward progress. And of course, that ranges in everything from debt and the need to sort of create platforms so that we can do more debt for resilient infrastructure swaps, et cetera, all the way through to specific solutions that might be needed for particular parts of the puzzle. So, I would say that we need to work at adjustments in the way that the IMF views some of these issues, because I think that the IMF and the MDBs are sometimes a bit static in a world where all of these crises compound. So, I think that there is more to be done there. We need to look at debt itself and also other debt instruments. We need to look at infrastructure, the lack of still significant movement on perceived risk, and our emerging market investor taskforce in the UK is, I think, promulgating lots of good ideas there. And then we need to keep working with colleagues inside MDBs to respond to client demand dynamically. Client demand is insisting that more investment flow, no matter what some shareholders may say, but that has to be responded to dynamically. And then I think that agility within the Multilateral Climate Finance Network is also important. I won't walk through now all of the things that I think should be on that to-do list, but if you want to e-mail me later, I'm happy to do so. And of course, in return, if any of you have got burning issues that you wish us to take up in our G20, there is still time to put that into the mix. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Rachel. And I'm sure there's lots of people who will take you up on that. I certainly will. But with that, let me invite Mr. Remy Rieu, who is the CEO of Finance in Common, to take the floor.

I will be super short for the sake of time. Just really to invite all of you to the sixth Finance in Common Summit. which will take place March 31st until April 2nd next year, 2027, in Bangkok. I want to thank the Asian Development Bank and the government of Thailand, who will be the host of the summit, which will take place at the UN Convention Center in Bangkok. So after Paris in 2020, Rome, Abidjan, Cartagena, Cape Town, it will be another occasion for all of us, and the first time in Asia. And we all know how Asia works and the role public development banks, especially national development banks, with the private sector, played in the region's surge. So we will push for more innovation. Thank you, Barbara. We will push for more research in this world. we will push for carbon markets structuring, for guarantee, for ethics, for data, for country platforms, all the subject we would like to put in the discussion with the 550 public banks and all their stakeholders. We will start discussing, we started discussing rules, standards and regulation. And hopefully we will further structure the initiative itself. And for what means climate and SDGs. So let's go back to Bangkok six months after the next occasion in October to keep our collective focus and move decisively forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Remy. And certainly a good way to kind of think about the solutions that we are hearing today and how we can replicate them and build on them. So thank you so much. But let me now come to the COP31 presidency and let me start with Turkey before going to Australia as well. So Ms. Ayse Dundusparaci, and I'm apologizing, I'm sure I have not pronounced it correctly, but the floor is yours.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'll start take over where Mr. Neto stopped, actually. When we first talking about the perfect initiative, Mr. Neto gave us the formulation for perfect initiative, which contains ownership, governance, support, and sustainability. I think the climate implementation bridge has it all, and it's a COP31 action agenda initiative that advances implementation of the Paris Agreement and supports the objective of the Global Implementation Accelerator by helping countries mobilize and coordinate finance, capacity, policy, and institutional support for climate action. BRIDGE aims to contribute to effective use of climate finance and support broader efforts associated with the NCGQ on climate finance and Baku to Belm roadmap towards scaling investment while maintaining a broader focus on implementation, effectiveness, institutional capacity, and delivery at country level. The bridge is a co-presidency led, country owned, whole of government initiative guided by NDCs, NAPS, long term low emission development strategies and national development plans that helps translate climate and development priorities into prioritized investment pathways, guided development, and aggregation of bankable project pipelines where appropriate and connect these with appropriate sources of capital through tailored financing solutions. It addresses the gap between climate ambition and capital deployment, focusing on the mobilization of public and private sector climate finance at scale. It's not a new implementing agency, financing institution, or coordination platform. Instead, it provides a structured pathway from national climate priorities to investment-ready opportunities and capital mobilization, offering flexible, modular support depending on country needs, and connecting institutions and financing mechanisms according to their comparative advantage. The BRIDGE will also seek complementarity with relevant plans to accelerate solutions, PAs, including Country Platforms Hub, the NAP Implementation Alliance, and the Fostering Investible National Adaptation and Resilience Initiative, where this can strengthen country-led implementation. The COP31 President-designate, His Excellency Minister Murad Kroom, is going to announce the pilot countries of BRIDGE on 24th of September in this room at 1:00 p.m. As we move toward Antalya with our Australian partners, through dialogue, we'll understand different needs, through consensus, we'll strengthen common ground, and through action, we will translate commitments into concrete projects and measurable results. Thank you. Thank you so much. At this step, let me directly invite our Dr. Sally Box from the COP31 presidency, Australia.

And thanks very much for convening us today. It's really great to be here and we're really honored to be working with Turkey this year to deliver COP31 and also to be working with our Pacific partners to elevate the priorities and voices of climate vulnerable countries as part of our COP31 journey. And as we've heard from many today, The challenge before us is not only mobilising finance at scale, but ensuring that the finance reaches the countries and the communities that need it most. The messages that we hear consistently from developing countries is that climate finance is too fragmented, it is too complex and it is too slow. We've heard that improving coherence across the climate and development finance architecture must be a priority, and that MDBs and climate funds and development finance institutions and bilateral partners need to work more effectively as a system around country-led priorities guided by NDCs and NAPs. And we hear regularly from our Pacific partners that the complexity in navigating multiple complex processes and standards and access requirements to secure support for their climate ambitions. And you've heard that directly today from our colleagues from Palau and from the Marshall Islands. So this is why what Australia has been doing this year is work closely with Pacific partners on an access to climate finance for SIDS and LDCs statement and action plan, which is a really core priority for pre-COP and for COP31. We've undertaken consultations with more than 100 stakeholders, including MDBs, the funds, and parties, and we've heard really loudly and clearly that complexity, duplication, and fragmentation remain major barriers to access. The message wasn't that the system lacks committed institutions, but that those institutions need to work together to enhance their coordination and cooperation. to make that finance flow faster to the most vulnerable countries. So what this Access to Climate Finance Statement and Action Plan therefore does is it calls on public finance institutions to work together as a system. And it's targeted at securing commitments from parties, from banks, from funds, and from organizations to take tangible steps to improve access. It encourages stronger coordination across MDBs, across the Green Climate Fund and other climate funds and bilateral partners to reduce fragmentation and to better align financing with national and regional priorities. It also reflects a strong call from SIDS and LDCs to move beyond isolated project by project approaches towards more programmatic approaches that build enduring institutional capacity and support long-term transformation. Importantly, what the statement and action plan also does is recognises the significant work that is already underway by the funds and the banks to reform and to increase complementarity. And we've heard about some of that progress today. So we look forward to sharing that with you and we encourage you to join us. I think just make one more point, but we also need to ensure that the multilateral climate funds have the predictable and the ambitious replenishments necessary to respond to growing developing country needs. and to continue leveraging additional public and private finance at scale. In a constrained fiscal environment, strong replenishments really do remain one of the most effective ways to maintain confidence in the climate finance architecture and to ensure that concessional resources are available when they're needed most. And Australia is proud to be increasing its climate finance commitments over the forward estimates. So in the interest of time, I'll stop there, but just to say that as we move towards COP31, Australia's really looking forward to working with partners across the climate finance ecosystem to advance those practical reforms to improve coherence, to strengthen access and to accelerate delivery. And as I said at the beginning, I think success will depend not only on how much finance we mobilize, but how effectively we work together to deliver it. Thanks.

Thank you so much. We are getting to the end, unfortunately, of this discussion, but I still have four more interventions on my list before we'll hand over to Salim. So it's my pleasure to invite Mr. Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, who is the executive director for the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, to take the floor.

Well, thank you very much, Madam Moderator. I had a two-hour speech, but I'll leave it to two minutes. in the essence of time, particularly when Selvin Hart and Mahmoud ask you to keep it short. Let me, one of the video being the recent fund, you learn from the others, but let me reflect on my year and a half on the job and how it will actually contribute to the conversation we're having. The couple of lessons, lesson number one, I had a feeling we talk about climate finance, we make it to be an institutional conversation, not a human conversation. As we speak, because of flood in Nepal, 1,200 people actually passed and 5,000 are actually missing. So I think the lesson number one that I've learned in the conversation, let's keep it human and less institutional so we can actually respond because all of us As struggling in the case of Nepal, how do you have a rapid response modality so you can make fund actually available to Nepal so you can save lives? And I think that is the lesson number one that I've learned on the job. Lesson number two, when we talk about country-led, country-owned, it means something to the fund for response to loss and damage. About a year ago, we launched a call for funding request with $250 million. guess what? We get about 176 requests, 119 countries, $2.8 billion. So what does that do? It's oversubscribed. It means the demand is incredibly big, and we have to respond rapidly. Let me use this opportunity to recognize CDB. And by the way, Mr. President, I approve your message. about the way we actually work together because loss and damage does not happen in Washington DC where we're based, it happened on the ground. But the fact that within a year with the national focal point with the countries, they generated the type of pipeline, it tells you what the countries need. It is not for us to tell them what to do or what their priority is, they know what they want. It's for us to actually respond to the part. And in fact, the work with CDB to generate the pipeline says it is not about the pipeline issue, it's about can we actually keep up with the pipeline. Last thing I wanted to say, it is clear, it was the kind of pipeline that we talked about. The three things we need to do and do very fast in making sure the climate finance architecture works for the countries. Number one is the availability of fundings. It is clear from what I heard so far, public money alone is not gonna do it. So we have to diversify our source of funding, whether it is philanthropy or private sector, but I still challenge this urge to what extent private sector and philanthropy can get us to the billions that we need so we can keep up with it. But I think it's important that we diversify our source of finance so we can keep up with what I talked about. Number two, accessibility. There is no point in us having billions of dollars that are not accessible to countries. We are an example that you can learn from other funds. we launched our co-funding request, we did not have our own accreditation systems. And I think I'm glad that Marshall recognized that. We leverage on the climate, the GCF, Adaptation Fund and GEF are making sure we're not starting from scratch. And that is the level of urgency we should all have in the way we actually develop accessibility. To the extent that money is being announced in the billions are accessible, we can simplify the process. Last but not least, affordability. I heard from the countries talk about grant is what we need, but grant alone is not going to do it. So we have to actually diversify our financial instrument to the extent because to have access to different tools and they deploy them as they need. And I think that is what I learned of being in the job for a year and a half, that ultimately I'm going to end where I started. This is not an existential conversation, it's a human conversation. Let's make sure that collectively We make sure we have funds that are highly capitalized, accessible, affordable, so that no one is left behind. But thank you.

Thank you so much. Let me now invite the Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum, Mr. Baron Devesi Vava, to take the floor.

Thank you. Excellencies, decision to convene this global climate summit with solution dialogue is timely. According to scientists, the planet is indeed getting warmer. At the outset, I wish to reiterate the Pacific's call to keep the 1.5 degree target alive. Our very existence depends on it. Our leaders have spoken earlier this month with one voice the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Palau on our first Pacific-led and owned regional climate finance solution. Our Pacific Forum Leaders' vision to make climate financing accessible to our communities is now a reality through the Pacific Resilience Facility, the PRF. Through the Palau, declaration for urgent and inclusive climate action to keep 1.5 degree within reach, our leaders have reaffirmed that the PRF is our preeminent climate investment priority. And I wish to underline today that our Pacific Islands Forum members have contributed 48% of the current capitalization of $180 million. This clearly demonstrates our Pacific ownership. Our leaders are here this week to lead the call to all our international partners to match our ambition and fully capitalize the Pacific Resilience Facility to reach the initial capitalization target of $500 million. The facility's long-term target of $1.5 billion for a 1.5 degree world is now no longer an aspiration. It is the distant future, but an urgent one. The Pacific is showcasing that the facility's transformative mandate to urgently deliver for the last mile is a key differentiator, which fills a crucial gap in the international financial architecture. The Pacific Pact on Gender and Climate Action that forum leaders have endorsed also reaffirms the Pacific Resilience Facility as the Pacific's own contribution to gender-responsive climate action. Excellencies, the Pacific Resilience Facility is the clearest expression of our desire for a solution that is fit for purpose, designed by us and for us. It is now being operationalized and delivering community grants to showcase at Pacific Pre-COP and COP31. And I invite you, therefore, to join us on this journey together and capitalize the Pacific Resilience Facility for a shared future where we all live with dignity and no one is left behind. And I thank you.

Thank you so much. Let me now invite Mrs. Pep Badui, who's the director of the Bridgetown Initiative and special advisor to the Prime Minister of Barbados. Pep, the floor is yours.

I know we're almost out of time, and I don't want to repeat what many good colleagues have said. I do think the Minister of Finance of Pakistan was right, that we need to focus on the how, and Selwyn, you're probably going to regret me not having proper notes, because I will go rogue. The fact that we continue to speak about country ownership is something that I find mystifying. If that is not taken for granted, I ask myself what world we have been living in. I am putting that out on the table. My second point is that, although many of the good speakers have suggested this, I want to emphasise that we cannot projectise development. We cannot achieve transformational resilience one little project at a time. First, we do not have the time, and, second, the way that this works is that it is a system that is being reinforced. If we are doing one thing and then, three years later, doing another, we are missing the opportunity for synergies. Also, I do not think that we can separate climate projects from everything else. That includes, as has been said previously, macroeconomic stability. It includes productivity, growth, taxation and all the stuff that is part of the wider climate finance agenda, and it includes poverty reduction. We all know that those go together. The reality on the ground for most countries that I am aware of is that you need to do a lot of things large numbers of complex things at the same time, for a sustained period, across political cycles, again and again and again, often unrecognised and often very thankless. The question is how we do that. We can do it on our own, and we need partners to support us, but my view is that we need leadership at the country level, and that is real leadership, not for a year or two years but for 10 or 15 years, apolitically. We need risk taking. We need people in institutions that are willing to push back and to say this isn't working or no, I don't want your project agency X, Y, or Z, or prime minister or president, we need another seven people. Or, you know, MDB, we need you to fund TA, right? I think we need to achieve the state of mind, what we call on the Bridgetown Initiative side, agency. If we are not owning the process, not in a paper way, but in a true way, day-to-day, year after year, I do not think we are going to achieve transformation. I will make two last points very quickly. We cannot talk about climate or development finance in the absence of talking about trade systems. I really do not think that we should separate these. My last point is around headroom. Last week, I mentioned this earlier today, with the Lick DSF review, there has been significant progress in how we are treating to investments and resilience. We need that to go far wider than low-income countries. We have to look at market access countries, but we also need to do things that we know work. We need to do way more PPPs. We need to make sure that debt pause clauses, where they are applicable, both for public and for private lending, are implemented and significantly push countries that are scared to say that they are in uncomfortable debt situations to actually come out and say, we need to do debt swaps. If we're sitting here fearful, we're not going to take advantage of instruments that are actually on the table. So rather than just inventing new ones, I think we need to adopt some of the ones that are available to us. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Rebecca. Very good point. And let me now call, please, on Mr. Benoit Farosol from the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Biodiversity and International Negotiations, Cabinet Nature from France.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. As I'm among the last speaker, I will try to wrap up. And a lot of things that has been said is echoing also what we have in mind for COP31, meaning that 10 years after Paris, we have met our climate finance goal. We are delivering the 100 billion promises, but there is still something that is missing, and it was echoed in a lot of intervention. We are not leveraging private money. as we should do. And when you look at the ratio back 10 years ago, it's quite similar to what we have today. And I think it's time also for COP31 to transform a little bit our conversation. And I would very agree with those who have said it's time to stop to discuss about concept and figures, but to discuss about projects and concrete initiatives, because climate finance will need different tools if we want to do water in Africa or if we want to do energy transition in the Pacific. There are common questions, guarantee, capital cost and so on, but at the end of the day, for me, one implementation action that could be super relevant for COP31 is to start implementing also the direction we will get from the roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuel and deforestation, because those roadmaps will be guide for not only parties, but also for private investors to signal where we are heading. And I think it's really super important. My second comment is related also to the fact that we need to change a little bit the conversation on adaptation and finance for adaptation. We have heard a lot about, uh, public resources and, um, concessional finance, and it's definitely needed, and France is doing its, its fair share o- o- on this one. But we need also to have another conversation, meaning that we need to bring a conversation on private finance for adaptation. Mafalda was referring to some very specific project complex on adaptation, and I think she was recalling us a beautiful project we are co-funding with private investor in Jordan. It brings blended finance to deliver drinkable water to more than 6 million per person using the World Bank, the Green Climate Fund, private investors. demonstrating also that if we want to be at scale on adaptation needs, we will need to have to include the private sector in the conversation. And my last point will be for for tonight, another very important element for France for for COP 31 related to the last intervention from from the speakers on loss and damages and so on. We know for sure that investing in early warning system which is very cheap money, reduce dramatically the cost of loss and damages. There is no point from our perspective to continue to support loss and damages if we don't reach full coverage of early warning system as soon as possible. Because if we are not capable to invest millions to basically save lives and reduce loss and damages by developing those early warning system, we will not be in a position to cover all the losses and damages that country will be facing. So we will need to focus on those priorities. And let's have conversation about energy security in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in Africa. We will use different tool. And to conclude on one very specific example, with President Macron, we had a very interesting Africa Forward Summit, co-led by President Putin and President Macron. And the conversation was, how do we scale up private finance for the energy transition? And it was quite different from what we can do in other country. We decided to finance a very specific mechanism, RCD, providing guarantee to unlock billions of private capital. And those conversation at regional level, developing specific tool for specific needs according to what are the country priority should be at the core of the discussion in COP31. I thank you so much and good evening to all colleagues. Enjoy your night in New York.

Thank you so much. I do want to apologise to everyone we have not had the chance to hear from today. Certainly, I did not meet the challenge here, so my apologies. We will make sure that, if there are any statements that you would like to share, we take them on board and include them in whatever report comes out from here. Very briefly from my end, before I hand over to Selwyn, I think this was a really fascinating and very rich discussion on the how, what are the solutions that can address scale, access, affordability and impact. think, coming back to the opening statements by the minister from Pakistan, I think this was an end-to-end discussion. It is about own resources, making greater use of national systems and expand access, like budgets, but also all the rest, MDBs, capital markets. It's about better coordination, but also about more efficient systems across ministries, but also across MDBs, vertically funds, and the private sector. about greater harmonization and interoperability and alignment. It's about innovating, including on due diligence or on instruments like guarantees, but also about learning from examples that work, like the Caribbean Regional Platform or the Benin country platform, and replicating that. And it's ultimately about tracking progress and improving data, including by reducing discrepancy between perceived and real risk and really improving the data there. It's about development and climate finance, And certainly capacity building is one of those foundational parts. So I think we need to come follow up from Rachel's points there to come up with a to-do menu here. And ultimately, we do need leadership and agencies, as Pep has said here. And just to close, there was a clear musical theme here. So I think money, money, money, we want it all and can't love without money. So we will make sure that we continue that. But Sylvain, over to you.

Barbara, thank you so much. And colleagues, sincere apologies that we did not get to hear every voice, the risk facilities, the regional risk facilities, some of our colleagues from the private sector, as well as member states as well. But what is absolutely clear is that we have a solid foundation on which to build on. The first decade of implementation of the Paris Agreement has taught us a lot of really important lessons. We need to accelerate, and I share your view that country ownership is something that we... But it is absolutely clear, developing countries, and we heard it from Pakistan, from Nigeria, from Indonesia, from the Pacific, from the Caribbean, countries are different. We cannot treat developing countries as a monolithic group. If there is one lesson that emerges from this dialogue, it is that it is absolutely critical that we listen to what developing countries are saying. and we acknowledge what developing countries are doing. So, colleagues, thank you so much. Barbara, of course, will continue, and Mahmood, thank you so much. Barbara will help us in crafting a really great summary. Those that have not spoken, if you can send us your prepared remarks, you are not supposed to have prepared remarks, but if you can still send us your prepared remarks, we will ensure that they're incorporated, but colleagues, really, Apologies. My colleagues from conference services and our great interpreters, I apologise and thank you so much. We have gone over time. See you tomorrow at the climate summit, which starts at 3 pm. Hopefully, we will be on time tomorrow. See you at 2.30 pm for the climate summit that the secretary general has convened. Thank you so much, colleagues.