Tipping or Turning Point? Scaling up climate finance in the era of COVID-19

Seminar abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a tipping point or a turning point in the fight against climate change.

Decisions taken by leaders today to revive economies will either entrench our dependence on fossil fuels or put us on a path to achieve the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

For the COVID-19 pandemic to prove a turning point, climate action and COVID-19 economic stimulus measures must be mutually supportive.

Developing countries must be able to access long-term affordable finance to develop and implement green stimulus measures. Developing countries’ access to climate finance is severely undermined by the COVID-19-induced economic and financial crises.

This could take the world to a tipping point of no return in the fight against climate change, as GHG emissions would rebound.

Physical and transition climate risks could impact 93 percent of industries and undermine the stability of economic and financial systems. While there has been a steady increase in climate finance over the past 10 years it has been too slow to channel financial resources towards low emission, climate resilient development. However, pricing climate risks is proving a challenge.

As a result, we are not witnessing a re-pricing of assets reflecting climate risks in global financial markets. Over the past two decades, a variety of actions have been taken to align finance with sustainable development.

Booking

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Speaker bio

Dr German (Jerry) Velasquez is the Director of GCF's (Green Climate Fund) Division of Mitigation and Adaptation.

Jerry oversees all matters relating to the Secretariat’s work in relation to the GCF’s mitigation and adaptation windows.

He heads the Division that collaborates closely with the Division of Country Programming (DCP) and the Division of Private Sector Facility (DPSF), as well as the accredited entities of the GCF, by providing expertise and technical support in the individual result areas of both climate change adaptation and mitigation.

This includes a thorough understanding of the incremental costs of low emission and climate-resilient investments.

He also reviews and assesses the pipeline of proposals for adaptation and mitigation activities to be financed by the GCF and assists developing countries and accredited entities in improving their readiness to access funding.

He leads a team of diverse thematic and sectoral experts and reports to the Executive Director.