Resolving the trillion dollar question

A global crisis requires a global response. The OPEC Fund launched its first Climate Solutions Week in April with a series of high-profile remarks by senior representatives of development institutions. President Abdulhamid Alkhalifa urged partners to focus their efforts: “Although the international community has raised ambitions and targets, delivery remains far from what is needed,” he warned. 

How to close the climate finance gap has indeed become the trillion dollar question of our times. “The climate crisis is the world’s most pressing challenge,” said Fatou Haidara, Deputy to the Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). According to expert estimates, US$8 trillion are currently needed every year, a staggering amount that is set to rise to US$10 trillion by 2030. 

Urgent action is needed to avoid further damage and reverse trends such as rising global temperatures. “Humanity is currently facing a triple environmental crisis that seriously threatens our survival on earth,” said Gabon’s Minister of Environment, Climate and Human-Wildlife Conflict, Arcadie Svetlana Minguengui Ndomba epse N’zoma. “This crisis is characterized by a loss of biodiversity, pollution and climate change.” 

One response to these challenges is technology. Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said: “We need intelligent and integrated cooperation, where we can align different technologies so that they can be deployed in the most effective and meaningful way.” As an example he mentioned recent activities by the IAEA to fight soil degradation in Africa. 

The continent’s fate is a telling example that climate change is also a question of fairness and equity. Africa accounts for the smallest share of global greenhouse gas emissions at just 3.8 percent, yet is worst affected by the impact of climate change and has the fewest resources to tackle the crisis: “We need an approach that involves shared responsibility, a firm commitment to equity and environmental justice, the enhancement of natural capital and taking into account our specific characteristics as a developing country,” Minister Minguengui Ndomba epse N’zoma warned. 

But Africa is not only facing huge challenges. “Africa has the highest potential in terms of renewable sources of energy,” said Francesco La Camera, Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). He reported huge momentum towards renewables, which last year accounted for 87 percent of all newly installed capacity. However, distribution remains unequal: Only 14 percent of new renewable facilities were added in developing countries. 

Austria’s Minister for Climate Action, Leonore Gewessler, joined the calls for urgent action: “History will judge us,” she reminded participants. She hailed the outcomes of the UN climate change conference COP28 in Dubai and the “transition away from fossil fuels.” While she lauded the commitment of producers of traditional forms of energy carriers, she urged more: “You are not in the centre of the energy transition.” 

Following high-level introductory sessions, the Climate Solutions Week later broke into a series of specific panels and workshops. Participants from, among others, the African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), UNIDO, World Food Programme, Sustainable Energy for All, Clean Cooking Alliance and International Fund for Agricultural Development, discussed clean cooking and ways to triple renewables by 2030 under the slogan: “Making it happen.” 

The final two days were dedicated to a joint OPEC Fund/ADB workshop on nature-based solutions. Both institutions launched a Nature Solutions Finance Hub at COP28 in December 2023 to scale up the flow of finance into conserving and protecting nature and biodiversity loss in the Asia & Pacific region. Together with finance and technical partners, ADB aims to catalyze at least US$2 billion by 2030 from public and private sources for nature-based solutions. 

The Climate Solutions Week also included the presentation of the OPEC Fund’s 2023 Award for Development to the Dhaka Ahsania Mission, a nongovernmental organization that supports underprivileged women and smallholder farmers in Bangladesh. OPEC Fund President Alkhalifa praised the organization: “Your work is critical in a country where agriculture supports every second livelihood and faces severe challenges from climate change.”