This position note was published in September 2019 to coincide with the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Financing for sustainable development has increased in recent years, but it has not kept pace with the scale required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This is particularly true for climate finance, which is dedicated to help countries adapt and cope with climate change, or to spur low-carbon economies.
Scaling up climate finance is important. In addition, decreasing investments in carbon-intensive industries and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies will be critical to achieving sustainable economic development.
Halting climate change, reducing pollution, reversing deforestation while ensuring growth in sustainable food production, are the defining challenges of the 21st century. Unsustainable agricultural and land management practices are driving climate change, contributing about one quarter of total annual emissions globally.
The UN Environment Programme and financing for development
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) focuses on mobilizing financing for climate action in several ways.
- Through the Finance Initiative, UNEP supports private financial institutions including banks, investors and insurers to understand and mitigate climate risks, seize the commercial opportunities from climate action, and fully align their investment portfolios with the objectives of the Paris Agreement—shifting their investments away from polluting industries and into corporations adopting sustainable practices.
The finance initiative contributes to the UN-REDD Programme, which reduces commodity-driven deforestation through REDD+ programmes, jurisdictional approaches and private sector commitments.
- Through its climate finance-related projects with governments, UNEP helps developing countries access the funds required to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change and to spur green growth. It helps countries access finance from multilateral funds such as the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility and the Adaptation Fund as well as through other bilateral or multilateral public sources.
Way forward
UNEP will continue to support developing countries in building resilience to the devastating impacts of climate change and growing the low-carbon societies of the future. It will also continue to work with the private sector, supporting large financial institutions to invest in a way that is compatible with low-emission and non-polluting societies.
For more information contact: Jessica Andrews
