Canada is launching a public and private financing platform for emerging countries, which focuses on adaptation to climate change, often neglected by current financing programs.
Posted at 1:23 p.m.
Updated at 3:58 p.m.
Called GAIA, the platform will ultimately have a fund of $2 billion (US$1.48 billion), 70% of which will be used to support projects to adapt to the impacts of global warming.
“This is major, because generally, the criticism from countries in the South is that the projects financed are mitigation projects, therefore reducing emissions,” declared the Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change. , Steven Guilbeault, during a telephone press conference from Baku, Azerbaijan, where the 29e United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29).
The Canadian government will inject $160 million into the platform, which will be launched “very soon”, but most of the funds available will come from the private sector; approximately half has already been found, indicated Minister Guilbeault.
A quarter of the funds will be reserved for small island developing states and least developed countries.
The GAIA platform will not only provide money, it will also provide expertise to help emerging countries develop “high-impact climate action projects”, with a technical assistance program aimed at capacity building , improving environmental and social standards and compliance with the fund’s investment criteria.
The Canadian announcement comes as signatory countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change must agree in Baku on a financing mechanism to help emerging countries deal with the climate crisis.
“There are not enough public funds at the global level to meet the scale of the needs,” indicates Minister Guilbeault, who sees in the GAIA platform a creative way of finding money, which can be reproduced by others.
But one of the criticisms regularly leveled at climate financial aid is that it is too often made up of loans which strangle emerging countries and keep them dependent on developed countries.
Steven Guilbeault responds that the part of the program which offers technical support is entirely made up of grants, while the implementation of the projects will be financed by “preferential loans, therefore loans which are very advantageous for the countries”.
“These projects will generate income for the participating countries and financial institutions,” adds the minister. [Cela] will make it possible to invest in other projects later. »
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