Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin: Implementing Climate Action in The Arab World Requires Activating Innovative Finance, Investing in Capacity Building and Technological Solutions
Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, said that Implementing climate action in the Arab region entails finding innovative ways to finance, investing in capacity building and technological solutions, as well as improving relevant legislative frameworks to incentivize climate action.
This came during his participation in the Second Arab Regional Forum on Climate Finance, organized by Egypt and UAE presidencies of COP27 and COP28 in collaboration with HLCs and The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA) in Dubai, with the participation of Razan Al Mubarak, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for COP28, Carol Chouchani Cherfane, Director of Arab Centre for Climate Change Policies at ESCWA, beside a number of Arab corporates and banks officials and representatives of relevant international organizations.
Mohieldin stated that the forum discussed a number of promising climate projects in the Arab region, including those related to mitigating emissions and transitioning towards clean energy, such as the Green Hydrogen project in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, beside those that contribute to climate adaptation, adding that the discussed adaptation projects contribute to the actual implementation of Sharm El Sheikh Adaptation Agenda launched during COP27 by the Egyptian presidency of the conference and HLCs.
Mohieldin stressed that the implementation of climate projects in the Arab region requires a blended finance that is capable of taking risks, explaining that this requires mobilizing funds from its public, private, domestic and external resources and activating mechanisms to reduce financing and investment risks such as credit guarantee and credit enhancement.
He underlined the importance of innovative finance for the implementation of climate action in the countries of the region as some of which suffer from debt crises, with bearing in mind that financing climate action is financing for sustainable development.
Mohieldin noted that effective partnerships and multilateral effort are the best way to mobilize finance, reduce its risks and overcome negativities that hinder the implementation of climate action, which the initiative of Regional Platforms for Climate Projects (RPCP) has succeeded in by bringing together governments, private sector, MDBs, IFIs, civil society and think tanks around one table, pointing out that the “NWFE” platform in Egypt reflects this comprehensive approach that brings all parties together and enhances partnerships for the financing and implementation of climate and development projects.
The climate champion explained that the Egyptian presidency of COP27 launched last year the RPCP initiative in cooperation with the HLCs and the UN regional commissions with the aim of finding investable, bankable and implementable climate projects, adding that the initiative in its first year resulted in more than 400 projects, and work was carried out during its second year, in which the UAE presidency of COP28 participated, to link a number of these projects to different financiers, which resulted in about 15 projects so far obtaining funding.
Mohieldin stressed the necessity of developing policies and legislative frameworks that incentivize climate action, scaling up PPPs, and enhancing the participation of the private sector and philanthropies in implementing climate action, explaining that the provision of these elements for the project of Benban Solar Energy Plant contributed to the implementation of one of the largest solar energy plants in the world in Egypt.
