IDB to align all projects from 2023 with Paris Agreement
Washington, Oct 31 (EFE).- The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is to align all its loans and projects from 2023 with the Paris Agreement, with the aim of accelerating the fight against the climate crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean, the institution’s president, Mauricio Claver-Carone, has said.
In an online interview with Efe from London, where he is preparing for the COP26 climate conference that starts on Sunday in Glasgow (Scotland), Claver-Carone stressed that the IDB wants to position itself “not only as a regional leader, but as a global leader.”
The president said that the Paris pact is “a milestone in the global fight against climate change,” but acknowledged that “it is not enough”, so the bank “will seek to go further to address this global challenge” in the region.
As a result, all IDB projects from 2023 onwards are to have net zero emissions goals and long-term decarbonization plans.
The multilateral bank is to also raise to 40 percent the annual threshold of funds earmarked to finance climate-related projects by 2025, including biodiversity and pollution control.
This represents an increase over the current 30 percent set by the IDB, which has already channeled more than US$5 billion a year into these types of projects.
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN AS GLOBAL BENCHMARKS
Claver-Carone, who has headed the main Latin American development institution since October 2020, stressed that the region is a “reference” and an “example” in the use of renewable energies, citing its important contribution in the energy matrix in countries such as Chile and Brazil.
However, he expressed his “frustration” that it is also the “leading victim” of climate change worldwide.
“Four of the five most affected countries in the world are in the region: Haiti, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras,” he said in his interview with Efe.
