With the 2023 Summit for a New Global Financing Pact on climate change taking place in Paris this week, World Bank Group president Ajay Banga announced the launch of a new initiative aimed at attracting £1trn of sustainable investment to fund the energy transition in emerging markets.
Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate summed up the scale of the challenge, when she told the crowd of politicians and finance officials gathered in the French capital: “You must be thinking in trillions not billions” and urged them to “put people first.”
While the summit predominantly focused on the role of public finance to support the climate adaptation in emerging markets, the World Bank also drew attention to the potential role of the private sector.
The new Private Sector Investment Lab will be co-chaired by Mark Carney, UN special envoy on Climate Action, and Shriti Vadera (pictured), the chair of Prudential Plc. It will initially focus on scaling up private investment to renewable energy projects and energy infrastructure in emerging markets.
The Lab’s leadership has now been tasked with recruiting leaders from private finance and business who have experience financing, investing, and doing business in emerging markets and developing economies.
Part of their new role will be to develop new financing structures and approaches to balancing risks in the early investment stages.
The announcement comes at a pivotal time for climate investments in emerging markets. Sustainable investment in emerging markets has over the past ten years surged from being practically non-existent to a record $250bn last year.
While the vast majority, some $150bn in investments were placed in the form of Green Bonds, sustainability bonds and sustainability-linked loans are also now accounting for a growing share of the market, according to IMF data.
Still, a bone of contention for politicians and climate activists gathered in Paris last week remained the question to what extent support for emerging markets in the climate transition should take place in the forms of grants or loans.
Franklin Steves, senior policy advisor at climate change think tank E3G said: “Global South leaders brought a real energy and host of potentially transformational proposals to Paris, which if implemented could start to mobilise private finance to emerging markets and developing economies at the scale required to avert climate disaster. Leaders from the rich countries now need to step up and help to deliver.”
With many emerging markets having historically burnt their fingers on World Bank issued loans, restoring faith in the organisation could be a challenge, climate activists such as Nakate and some politicians demanded a cancellation of emerging market debt instead.
World Bank president Banga also used the summit to offer emerging markets a pause in debt repayments. The balance between delivering climate justice to countries at the receiving end of the worst effects of climate crisis and the Lab's ambitions to attract private capital is likely to be a fine line to tread.
