BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23. A creative mechanism is needed to make sure that the emerging and developing countries do also receive clean energy financing, Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said in an exclusive interview with Trend.
Birol believes that climate financing is the nerve center of all the problems.
“Let me give you the context. About $2 trillion are invested in clean energy financing in the entire world this year. This is not good enough, but encouraging. But the problem is that about 85 percent of this $2 trillion is invested in the advanced economies and in China. Only 15 percent is invested in the emerging and developing world where more than two-thirds of the global population lives. So, there is a major problem here. And we have to come up with a creative mechanism where the countries, the parties, do agree in order to make sure that the emerging and developing countries do also receive clean energy financing. Because if we are not able to do that, we have no chance whatsoever to reach our climate targets,” said the IEA executive director.
He pointed out that problems cannot be solved only with the increasing climate financing in the advanced economies and in China.
“There is a huge amount of emissions coming from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and we will not be able to reach our targets. Therefore, for me, this is a critical issue. Both COP29 and COP30 need to focus on financing. I believe that in addition to the COP29 presidency, the G20 presidency of Brazil this year should work in order to get the necessary funds for the emerging and developing countries,” he said.
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