Four Necessities For Successful Climate Financing In Developing Countries, Yvo de Boer

Writing for BusinessGreen earlier this week, Yvo de Boer laid out four ways which he believes are necessary for climate financing to successfully impact developing countries.

The name Yvo de Boer will be recognizable to many readers as the man who served as the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. de Boer is now serving as the director-general of the Global Green Growth Institute, an organization “founded on the belief that economic growth and environmental sustainability are not merely compatible objectives”. It was the Global Green Growth Institute, in tandem with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization that earlier this year published a report debunking the idea that cutting greenhouse gas emissions must also impact a country’s economic growth.

“Significant progress has already been made in overcoming the hitherto conventional wisdom that taking steps to cut GHGs is incompatible with economic growth,” said Yvo de Boer at the time. “This report moves the debate another positive step forward by showing that employment and development result from sustainable, green growth.”

But word seems not to have reached the global investment community, as developing nations are still finding themselves without the capital necessary to “move toward a sustainable, low-carbon future.”

Writing in a guest post for BusinessGreen, de Boer makes four points that he believes are necessary to address getting “existing capital … into innovation, green investments, technology, and poorer countries.”

• “First, developed countries need to take steps to show commitments to support developing and emerging countries through public finance.”
• “Second, increasing political commitment to environmental issues is crucial.”
• “Third, the technology, at present, is not making its way into the market to effectively assist developing countries.”
• “Last, it is critical to write bankable project proposals that translate environmental propositions into a common language for investors and take those proposals to the financial institutions that will finance project implementation.”

The whole piece is incredibly valuable reading — one that will hopefully make the rounds to investors, international finance organizations, and governments the world over — but de Boer concludes with these important words:

All in all, it is vital to formulate proposals that can appeal to investors from a risk and reward perspective, create a policy-friendly environment in a country that is conducive to green growth investments and provide enhanced and more incentive-based governance mechanism for private investment.

Image Credit: via Global Green Growth Institute