How can we ensure that all financing flows are consistent with a low-carbon and climate-resilient development? More specifically, what measures can be taken to ensure a transformative, just and sustainable economic recovery post-pandemic? These were questions raised during the extensive event week ”Semana de Financimiento Climatico y Sostenible para America Latina y el Caribe” (Climate and Sustainable Financing Week for Latin America and the Caribbean) that was held September 21 to 25 organized by Climate Finance Group of Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC).
The RCC Panama had the opportunity to participate during session “Mobilizing the private and financial sector” to share perspectives from the private sector for addressing climate change and the COVID19 pandemic, and to particularly discuss about the role of the tax and the carbon market.
The week initiated by the opening session on the importance of financial mobilization for addressing climate change in the context of the pandemic. Fiona Clouder, the COP26 Regional Ambassador to Latin American countries and the Caribbean highlighted the role of finance as absolutely vital to achieve the targets in the Partis Agreement, and shared examples of how this is done up until COP 26 through engagements with international financial institutions, public development finance and campaigns such as Raze To Zero to reach the finance sector. She also laid the foundation of the week ahead with stating that “climate must be integrated into every financial decision; how we invest, measure risks, assign value to assets, how we look at huge investment opportunities, and how every financial institution, country, bank, has to adjust their businesses ahead”.
The following 12 sessions throughout the week continued with widespread dialogues, thanks to the engaged number of collaborating organizations, apart from GFLAC was Aida, Fundacion Avina, Barranquilla +20, IDEADS, OCLAC, SEI and Transparencia Mexicana as well as the great number of 66 speakers from 38 participating countries. The need to create this space was apparent as the majority of the event’s participants in the region did not consider the Latin American countries to take climate change into account enough as a priority in the economic recovery plans in national policies. The basis of the dialogues was the call for a collaboration in the design of the recovery packages from not only considering climate change, but also gender perspective, human, indigenous and intergenerational rights.
A large focus of the week was to share examples of good practices working with climate finance. Lessons learnt of including the private sector when addressing climate change was heard from Brazil and Chile, as well as strengthening an enabling environment for climate finance with experience from Costa Rica, Argentina and Uruguay. From Mexico it was reported its advances on adoption of commercial system of emission and carbon tax, highlighting the signal it provides for the markets, and the need for tax policies to be aligned with simultaneous progress in technology and private sector progress. Apart from the public policies also the opportunities with NDC Partnership and the positive forecasts of employment opportunities with decarbonization investments in renewable energy was mentioned as keys for a clear pathway forward.
The social aspect of sustainability, becomes urgent to address in the face of the pandemic which was also tackled. The inequalities that our societies encounter are becoming more clear through the pandemic and how all decisions on financial mechanisms and institutional and governmental initiatives must also include the aspect of indigenous and local communities. As Sandra Guzman, founder and general coordinator of GFLAC closed one of the sessions with “It is clear that while everyone is working towards a scenario where we share a vision not everyone is participating with the same rights and conditions and we must recognize that this pandemic has proven these inequalities, both social and imbalances in our economic systems, and therefore use this opportunity to integrate these. Now is the moment of making those changes and work together, recognizing each other as everyone in the sessions has said”.
These topics and many more were covered in the conversations among all stakeholders needed to enable an inclusive environment of representatives from governments, international institutions, civil society, and international experts in climate finance.
Information about all sessions can be found here and can be watched online on this link
Hashtags: #ReactivacionTransformadora #FINCCLAC2020 #SustainableFinance4Future
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHtn-U9L_fPcWnEkISD9wOQ/videos
Website: https://www.gflac.org/fincclac2020