- Simon Stiell said the world needs to mobilise at least $2.4 trillion to keep global climate change goals within reach.
- He said finance is the make-or-break factor in the world’s climate fight.
The Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Simon Stiell, said today that the world needs to mobilise at least $2.4 trillion to keep global climate change goals within reach. Stiell addressed a group of students at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy in Baku, host of the COP29 climate summit in November 2024, laying out the steps needed this year to turn the commitments made at last year’s summit in Dubai into reality.
Stiell, stated in a report released in December from the High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance that to achieve this transition, it needs money about $2.4 trillion or more. Note also that climate finance will be the main focus of the Azerbaijan-hosted talks, where governments will set a new target post-2025 for raising money to support developing countries efforts to cut emissions and adapt to the worsening impacts of climate change.
Stiell said that finance is the make-or-break factor in the world’s climate fight, adding that without more finance, the wins achieved at the COP28 Dubai summit will fizzle out. He also said that global financial systems and multilateral banks can meet the task of ramping up climate finance.
Stiell urged banks to triple the number of climate grants and concessional finance by 2030 and triple the rate of private capital they mobilise this year. More broadly, he cautioned that the political agreement reached in Dubai enables countries to hide behind “loopholes”.
He said, “The action we take in the next two years will shape how much climate-driven destruction we can avoid over the next two decades and far beyond”.