Panelists:
Anoop Poonia, Climate Action Network – International (Moderator)
Julia Bucknall, Director, Environment and Natural Resources Global Practice- World Bank Group
Graham Watkins, Advisor to Division Chief of Climate and Sustainability, Inter-American Development Bank
Daniel de Lemos Ribeiro, Friends of the Earth- Mozambique
Kate Geary, Bank Information Center
Anoop Poonia, CAN-I
- What role can country strategies play in achieving 1.5 degrees
- They provide a huge opportunity and can play a transformational role as a bottom up approach
- Opportunity to align financial flows for next 3-5 years, and reduce emissions
Daniel de Lemos Ribeiro, FoE Mozambique
- Signs are clear, we know what we need to do – therefore target 1.5 degrees
- Different in different regions, Paris has put upper limit 2 degrees, but we should aim for 1.5
- Global South are committing more than their fair share
- We are occupying the compromise trajectory, important to not forget this, and what failures to omit to meet these pledges means
- Mozambique only 20% of population has access to electricity
- 53 of the richest people can power the whole of Africa, moreover there is an impact of tax havens
- Policies have an impact to create a foundation
- Mozambique policy to not support fossil fuels and more carbon friendly development is mentioned in the bigger picture, but in the detail this is not happening
- Eg can’t get coal out without roads, tax laws and subsidies are making this feasible
- A study by BIC on four countries, WB was putting on pressure regarding coal to revive the industry, including adapting tax systems
- Infrastructure also gets support, funded mainly by WB
- REDD, a lot of support, major problems with community rights, evidenced by several studies
- 7 years of payment, but contract for 25 years (after final payment), not about community rights
- There is a difference between what is on paper and what is happening
- On land acquisitions, there was a government decree in 2010 which was later modified to allow the government to define community lands, identifying free avaialable land for investors
- Lot of concerns about the impact on the ground
- Mabu Forest, four communities are in process to make community managed and owned
- Quite a few threats, been pushed back for logging concessions
- FoE working with communities to find alternatives to REDD
Kate Geary, BIC
- Question on how country strategies can be helpful to combat climate change, there is also the hidden climate footprint of the World Bank
- BIC has been looking at indirect investment of the WB, public sector policy lending, private sector financial intermediary (FI) lending
- DPL is 30-40% of WB expenditure
- On private sector side, 52% goes to FIs
- DPF findings of BIC research in Mozambique, Peru, Indonesia, Egypt
- Introduced new fossil fuel subsidies, undermined local governance, eg speeding up approval of big infra projects
- Heightened deforestation risks, loans did not assess forest risks of promoting PPPs and large infra, eg in the Amazon
- There were some positive findings, WB support to low carbon development, but you can’t give with one hand and give away with the other
- This must be addressed for WB to meet climate commitments
- On FIs, IDI research looked at a few countries and a few FIs supported by IFC, and found over 40 coal projects, despite Kim’s commitment to not fund coal unless exceptional circumstances
- Coal extraction comes at a price for forests, and indigenous peoples – climate double whammy
- WB can’t meet climate commitments with these massive funding loopholes, must stop allowing FIs and DPLs to support this
- On country strategies, solutions are at the country level, eg country partnership frameworks, developed together with governments for plans over next 4-5 years, so they need to get them right
- Many are coming up for review in the next few years, an opportunity to get it right
- Combatting climate change must be socially just, eg include the role of indigenous peoples
Julia Bucknall, World Bank
- We all want the same thing, socially inclusive poverty reduction, not destroying the environment – need to find right balance but lots of uncertainties and trade offs to be balanced
- We have stringent rules, so has the IFC, and we are increasingly coordinating with them
- If things goes wrong we will investigate, but not our policy to fund for example coal mines
- Our job is to do the hardest things, sometimes they go wrong
- NGOs seems to want us to fail on REDD+, help us to make it pro poor and pro climate to make it work and to make it right
- Forest Action Plan, not just about carbon, to find the sweet spot where you match all the things, a corporate commitment screening against criteria
Graham Watkins, IDB
- Agree must follow through on global commitments
- Everybody talking about the same thing, the Global Infrastructure Forum tomorrow will be all about this, sustainable infrastructure
- Huge issue of public sector capacity, need to be solved on the country level playing field is uneven, incentives for example for deforestation
- Look at Bent Flyberg’s approach to cost-benefit analysis – why are we still using it as a tool?
- New tools are available, including from WB
- Urgency is not urgent enough, infra last 40 yrs, takes about 6-8 years to build, so there is a lag
- We have 15 years, already half of it is gone, the train wreck is happening already
- IUCN congress last year realised that biodiversity is gone, they hadn’t focused on the threats and drivers that undermine it
- Banks are responding
- IDB has mainstreamed climate and sustainability in strategy, new department, urban sust, rural sust, climate change
- Developing climate action plan
- Changes are driven from the top, developed from bottom up
- Changed country strategy process, but this is nto the entry point, as is an agreement renewed every 3 years
- But you want to change what is happening in the country, with the different banks, need to work at multiple levels
- Want to mainstream climate into country strategy, into programming and operations – a lot of work, but people are buying into it
- Also working on a country level on all of this, building capacity
- New climate economy report on infra, there is a chapter on landscapes
- Private sector need to be engaged to get enough funds
- GIF etc, about how to change the infra agenda to low carbon, also about stakeholder engagement
- IFC stated stakeholder engagement and climate resilient are essential for project in a meeting yesterday
- Nature article coming up that intensity of storms are going to increase by 2020, not 2050 – everybody needs to work together
Poonia
- Country strategies are important, but a shrinking space for civil society to influence policy design, financing, etc
- Not many hooks available, so everybody has a role to play, including the banks themselves
- NDCs are not perfect, but shows direction of travel and hopefully gives space for enhancement
- All Paris Agreement objectives depend on MDB financing, but need to be in the context of what countries have put forward
- Renewables an opportunity, and manage and reduce the risks, making it more accessible
- Of all oil, gas out there, not much room to further explore
- Role of fossil fuel subsidies, still rampant and supported by public finance
- Country strategies is one hook for people on the ground and governments
- How does DPL influence, can support low carbon development, avoiding deforestation