Bridging the Climate Finance Gap

Among the weighty responsibilities of the UN Secretary General’s new Climate Ambition Team Lead is forging unprecedented collaboration between the policymakers crafting emissions reduction plans and the financiers holding the trillions in capital required to catalyze an economic revolution aligned with the 1.5°C warming limit.

To date, global climate policy bodies have largely developed emissions frameworks and timelines based more on scientific necessity than pragmatic financing realities. The result is a widening chasm between targets set and funds secured.

COP26 commitments aim for $100 billion per year in climate finance flows to developing nations – yet 2019 saw less than $80 billion materialize. Clearly, better alignment is imperative.

Here the Climate Ambition Team Lead steps into the breach – spearheading coordination between entities like the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change policy architects and the bankers and investors at institutions like the World Bank and BlackRock who truly understand market constraints and bottlenecks.

The Team Lead must foster new networks, dialogues and partnerships between these worlds that too seldom intersect. Their success catalyzing progress rests heavily on appropriately merging political willpower with financial deal-making savvy.

This may see them pressing policymakers to integrate more market incentives into emissions programs. It will certainly involve urging financiers to move capital faster and direct credit tools to catalyze sustainability infrastructure at the pace and scale required.

The Team Lead serves as both translator and negotiator between factions often speaking past one another as existential deadlines creep closer. It falls to them and their team to bridge divides and unlock collaboration that accelerates decarbonization.

With climate catastrophes intensifying yearly, the Climate Ambition Team Lead must bring together the money and mandates quickly and creatively enough to meet this ultimate test of vision and diplomacy.