5.5.2022
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 184/133 Thursday 21 October 2021
Sustainable climate finance
70.
Highlights that the EU and its Member States are the largest provider of public climate finance; recognises the importance of climate finance for climate actions, as many developing countries have conditional NDCs, the achievement of which depends on financial support; welcomes therefore the decision taken at COP24 to decide on a more ambitious target from 2025 onwards, beyond the current commitment to mobilise USD 100 billion per year as of 2020, but expresses concern that the actual pledges by developed countries are still falling a long way short of the collective goal of USD 100 billion per year, and calls for this gap to be filled; urges the EU and its Member States to step up their efforts to mobilise international climate finance for developing countries and build an international roadmap outlining each developed country’s fair share of the USD 100 billion financial pledge and mechanisms to ensure that pledges are turned into deeds; expects emerging economies to make a contribution, from 2025 onwards, to the higher amount of international climate financing in the future; in that context, supports the initiation of negotiations on a new financial goal for the period after 2025, exploring an approach for a goal matrix with separate sub-goals, including for grants-based finance, reflecting the growing severity of climate impacts and the urgency of fully accelerating climate action in this decade;
71.
Emphasises that financial flows are crucial for adaptation to climate change; stresses the importance of operationalising the global goal on adaptation and of mobilising major new funds for adaptation in developing countries; calls for the EU and its Member States to commit to a significant additional increase in the adaptation finance they provide so as to achieve a balance between adaptation and mitigation finance, prioritising grants-based finance, and to prepare appropriate pledges to be made at COP26;
72.
Affirms that carbon border adjustment mechanism revenues could be used to scale up the provision of climate finance to developing countries, in particular for adaptation, but also to reduce the carbon intensity of their exports as well as their domestically sold products;
73.
Recognises the need for progress on the issue of loss and damage, for which additional and adequate resources should be raised through innovative sources of public finance under the Warsaw International Mechanism and for which the EU should support a COP26 mandate for the Warsaw International Mechanism’s new Action and Support Expert Group (ASEG) to explore and pursue such sources;
74.
Points to the fact that the COVID-19 crisis has once again showed that we rely on each other to address global challenges and it should be seen as a wake-up call for more ambitious and collective action; stresses the need to build resilience by learning all the lessons from the current crisis in terms of insufficient emergency planning and emergency response capacities; warns that the COVID-19 crisis is reversing progress towards the SDGs, is increasing extreme poverty in developing countries and has exacerbated debt levels; underlines that significantly scaling up climate finance and urgently finding viable solutions regarding debt relief for third countries within international forums is necessary to facilitate a global green recovery;
75.
Considers it essential that the major international financial institutions swiftly adopt and develop green finance in order to bring about a successful decarbonisation of the global economy; recalls the role of the EIB as the EU’s climate bank and its recently adopted Climate Bank Roadmap and updated Energy Lending Policy; urges multilateral development banks, including the EIB, and development finance institutions to finance more climate investments, to align their portfolios with the Paris Agreement and to support developing countries in recovering from COVID-19 in a green, inclusive and resilient way; points to the need to create platforms and tools to promote and share best practices for sustainable recovery and to promote practical collaboration in decoupling GHG emissions from economic growth while increasing prosperity; calls for a global agreement on sustainable finance principles, including the International Financial Reporting Standards sustainability accounting standards, to be developed and supported;
76.
Welcomes the fact that the Adaptation Fund will continue to serve the Paris Agreement; recognises the importance of this fund for those communities most vulnerable to climate change, and notes that since 2010 the fund has committed more than USD 830 million for climate change adaptation and resilience projects and programmes, including more than 120 concrete, localised projects in the most vulnerable communities of developing countries around the world; stresses, however, that this amount is not sufficient and calls on donor countries to significantly step up their contributions to the Adaptation Fund with a more predictable and multi-year approach;