10 Important Points from the 5th day of COP28

KEY ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. HE Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, Chair of the UAE Banking Federation, announced during the Global Climate Action Through Fostering Sustainable Finance event at COP28 that the UAE Banking Federation has collectively vowed to mobilise AED 1 trillion, equivalent to nearly $270 billion, by 2030.

2. Three further announcements on hydrogen, cooling, and gender will be announced in the coming days by COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber. "I am particularly proud that we delivered the first-ever declarations on health and food systems." "These are two huge priorities for our COP28 Presidency action agenda," he explained.

3. The UAE banking sector announced a historic pledge to mobilise more than $270 billion in sustainable finance by 2030.

4. The United Kingdom and Senegal announced the first ever climate-resilient debt provisions in Africa. A total of 73 countries issued a call to action for the adoption of these clauses. "The United Kingdom (UK), France, the World Bank, the African Development Bank Group, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) just announced they will expand the use of climate resilient debt clauses in their lending, which pause debt when countries are hit by natural disasters," a post on the COP28 X account read.

5. France and Japan stated that they will take the lead in supporting the African Development Bank's groundbreaking facility for leveraging Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) for climate and development, directing more resources where they are most needed. SDRs are the International Monetary Fund's rainy-day foreign exchange reserves, which are backed by dollars, euros, yen, pounds, and yuan.

6. ReNew Energy Global Plc, a renewable energy provider, signed an initial agreement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for $5.3 billion in investment. "The MoU was signed at COP28, Dubai by ReNew's Founder, Chairman and CEO, Sumant Sinha and Suzanne Gaboury, Director General, Private Sector Operations Department, ADB," according to a statement from the firm.

7. The Arab Energy Fund, formerly known as APICORP, wants to spend up to $1 billion in decarbonisation technology over the next five years, according to Reuters, citing the Middle East and North Africa-focused multinational finance agency. The proposed investment and new name are part of a five-year strategy to support the regional energy transition to net-zero goals through 2028. The statement was made in Dubai during the COP28 climate meeting.

8. During the COP28 climate meetings in Dubai on Monday, a consortium led by the Rockefeller Foundation announced the launch of a pilot effort to use carbon credits to retire a coal power plant in the Philippines before the end of its natural life. The Coal to Clean Credit Initiative (CCCI) described its proposal as a "first of its kind" in that it intends to use carbon credits to fund the early shutdown. The latest plan, announced on the fringes of the conference, stated that the CCCI intended to use carbon credits to decommission the South Luzon Thermal Energy Corporation (SLTEC) plant by 2030, a decade earlier than its current retirement date.

9. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced on Monday that it will provide the Philippines with $10 billion in climate finance between 2024 and 2029. The financing would assist the Philippines in meeting its climate action commitments under the Paris Agreement, according to an ADB statement issued during the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

10. A US official told Reuters that Canada, Brazil, and Egypt will unveil additional methane limits at the COP28 climate summit later on Monday. As of Monday, 155 countries had joined the Global Methane Pledge, a voluntary collaboration in which governments agreed to cut methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030.

Source: livemint.com