A look at the UAE Declaration on a Global Climate Finance Framework
Dr Al Jaber emphasised the Declaration as a framework for financing a new climate economy. The holistic effort focuses on rebuilding trust, scaling up climate finance, and reframing climate investments as economic opportunities to fight against climate change.
The COP28 President stressed that a single initiative wouldn't be enough to create the needed climate finance system. Therefore, the Declaration, launched alongside global leaders championing climate finance reform, targets the availability, affordability, and accessibility of climate finance. "No single initiative will create the
climate finance system we need. Together, we must build a holistic ecosystem of solutions," he said.
The Declaration aims to bridge the Global North and South trust gap. It coincided with important events related to climate finance, such as replenishing the Green Climate Fund, fulfilling a promise made a decade ago to transfer $100 billion to economies affected by climate change, and agreeing on Loss and Damage.
The Framework sets out 10 fundamental principles to deliver climate finance at scale:
Seize the opportunity: Urges global leaders to capture the growth opportunity of a generation, building on flagship initiatives such as the Bridgetown Initiative, Accra-Marrakesh Agenda, G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, and African Leaders’ Nairobi Declaration on Climate and Call to Action.
Deliver on commitments and achieve ambitious outcomes: Calls for the delivery of promises such as mobilising $100bn for developing countries, replenishment of the Green Climate Fund, and operationalisation of the Loss and Damage Fund, and underscores the importance of making finance available, affordable, and accessible.
Free up fiscal space for climate action: Demands an international finance architecture fit for more frequent, profound shocks, equipping developing countries with the means to take climate action while managing debt distress.
Widen the space for concessional finance for climate action: Sets out innovative new financial mechanisms to be explored to help generate support at scale for the developing world.
Deliver just, country-owned transitions, leaving no one behind: Sets out how the opportunities in the real economy can be captured, including with technical support and the transfer of technology.
Double down on country platforms: Stresses the value of country-led, coordinated support and investment around climate goals to deliver on achievable transition pathways.
Build better, bigger, and more effective MDBs: Encourages the MDBs to adopt a raft of reforms to enhance their support for climate action and make explicit, regular, ambitious, forward-looking projections on their aggregate climate finance.
Enhancing domestic resource mobilisation: Calls for robust policy frameworks, financial incentives to mobilise investment, and technical assistance to policy stakeholders.
Unlocking a highway of private finance: Places focus on measures to mobilise the trillions needed to meet our climate goals, reducing the cost of capital for effective and scalable catalytic instruments.
Delivering high-integrity carbon markets: Calls for carbon markets to adhere to the fundamental principles of environmental integrity to unlock finance and action at scale.
The UAE also introduced the Global Climate Finance Center (GCFC), which is a private-sector think tank that focuses on research and capacity building to encourage low-carbon, high-growth investments globally and regionally. Dr Al Jaber emphasised that the GCFC will play a critical role in supporting the Declaration's implementation by creating financial policies and project pipelines that will unlock funds on a scale that has never been seen.