Christine Lagarde in Frankfurt, Germany, July 18, 2024. (AFP / KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV)
Recent natural disasters around the world show that “we are paying the price for our inaction” in the face of climate change, wrote the President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde in a column this Tuesday, November 12.
A statement at a time when COP29 seeks to obtain an agreement on financial aid to developing countries. This Tuesday, November 12, the President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde warned that
the financing gap for adaptation to climate change is growing.
“The ‘financial gap’ between climate adaptation needs and planned investments is widening, with financing needs now
estimated 50% higher than previously, and up to 18 times higher than current commitments”,
wrote Christine Lagarde in a column published by the
Financial Times
and on the ECB website. The energy transition alone requires
“triple investments in clean energy by 2030”,
she states.
“Developing countries must not leave Baku empty-handed,” UN warns
To meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, global annual investments in climate change mitigation must reach
11.7 trillion dollars per year by 2035,
or around 10% of global economic production, according to the UN environment agency (UNEP). Recent floods in Spain, droughts in the Amazon basin and storms in North America show that
“we are paying the price for our inaction”
in the face of climate change, writes the central banker, who has made climate protection one of the priorities of her mandate. “These events are horrific in themselves, but they
also destroy the foundations of our economies
and, ultimately, the basis of our economic survival,” she writes.
The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, on Tuesday summoned the approximately 200 countries participating in the COP29 on climate in Baku to
find a compromise on financial aid
that developed countries must pay to poorer countries, to help them reduce their emissions and adapt to climate change.
“Developing countries must not leave Baku empty-handed.
An agreement is essential” by the end of the conference on November 22, he urged.
