Executive Director Keynote Speech

As I was thinking about what to say today, I was taken back to my early days of climate work almost twenty years ago.

I was already working in international development, but I decided to target my work a little bit more in terms of development and climate because, at the time, I really saw the impacts on countries, and then I became curious about what the science is telling us about this.

Once I looked a little bit more into the science, I realized that if we were not going to be ambitious in terms of policies and investments, to really reverse what a group of very credible scientists were already saying at the time were dim projections of impacts, we were going to see the planet return to conditions that we had seen before—millions of years ago; but there were no humans at that time.

So, the planet has experienced conditions of increased temperature and much higher sea level than what we have now, but humans were not there.

And that's what really stuck in my mind: the unparalleled consequences for humanity if we continued on our current path and did not pay sufficient attention to what the scientists were saying.

Looking back at these 20 years, I characterize this journey as both rewarding and frustrating. It is rewarding because we have made substantial progress compared to where we are right now.

Back then, in the institutions that we are now talking about as part of this financial architecture, we had to convince people that there was something about climate change and that they should care about climate action.

And these were economists, these were energy specialists, from all sorts of professions. They were thinking that this was the business of environmentalists. What do we have to do with this, they would ask?

We now have a Paris Agreement. We do not have to go on that journey of convincing so many people that it would have been natural for them to be persuaded. We have NDCs as an example and a call for increased ambition through NDCs.

Some data is also very valuable to help us bring perspective to issues.

It is reassuring to hear, for example, the International Energy Agency say that if we were to continue the 2015 policy path, we would be one-degree centigrade higher than we are at the moment. So, we have accomplished something.

But it has also been frustrating because this progress is far too slow. When I attend these events, I like to see the latest information from science.

There was an interesting article in early October, and this group of scientists framed it like this: We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster.

Yes, we are making significant progress. But we are making it too slow.

As we hear more of the science, we know that they keep telling us the window to act is shrinking.

Again, just weeks ago, the UN released this report that stressed that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Last year, they rose 1.3 percent, an average increase above the previous decade.

Why is it also frustrating? Because we know those who contributed the least are paying the heaviest price.

Between 2010 and 2020, human mortality from floods, droughts and storms was 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions. We know that the displacement of people is on the rise. It has doubled since 2008.

And who are the people that are being displaced? It is those who are most vulnerable. We know that countries have to spend more resources on that than on climate, health, or education.

Last year, it struck me that a country like Tuvalu has been negotiating for several years with Australia on the possibility of having its people move to Australia because the land they live on is at risk of disappearing due to climate change.

This year, such countries are now discussing the need to retain statehood, even if they no longer have the land where our people will live, the land that they call their ancestral land.

Let's just think about this. Those of us who are not from small island developing states. Can you imagine that your country and your leaders are discussing at the UN about ensuring and maintaining their statehood and making plans for where the population will live because your country might no longer exist or the land that you call your country might no longer exist?

This is not fantasy, this is not scientific fiction, this is the reality.

So, the question is, what is it that is not working?

What is it that needs to change in this system, in this architecture, in these institutions, which were built for a different time to meet a set of objectives?

I recently said that the institutions built in the 20th century are not really equipped to deal with 21st-century challenges.

We have compounding crises. We went through COVID, the pandemic, and we have wars. We are still suffering from those impacts.

We have wars, we have more wars, and we have escalating impacts and costs of climate change.

So, we need to think about the system. Let me just share with you what I think and what we are trying to do at the Green Climate Fund as we think about these issues.

How do we reimagine the system? What is a system that can respond to 21st century challenges? What are the institutions that we need to respond to 21st century challenges?

I'll mention a few. One, we need significant new levels of ambition.

This is why we announced last year a new vision, a 50 by 30 vision, a roadmap for us to manage as a key instrument in this system, in this architecture, an enabler of so many others.

A vision to manage 50 billion by 2030 with maximum efficiency and impact.

We need deliberation. We cannot assume that without it, we will be able to reach the most vulnerable or mobilize the private sector in the required way.

It requires deliberation.

If we are not deliberate, particularly reaching the most vulnerable and the poorest, we know from development work that we will not reach it.

We need deliberation.

Another very important element is honouring country leadership. This is a two-sided coin: helping countries take on that leadership role and countries themselves owning and taking that leadership role.

Last year, GCF revisited our readiness strategy or programme that provides resources to countries so that they can develop ambitious NAPs, NDCs, and country programmes or platforms that do not respond to one entity but respond to the system.

We need to have a system of institutions that can bring the system together.

We need to look at our institutions and consider the fit-for-purpose structures that can efficiently deliver on a new level of ambition.

As of September this year, GCF has implemented a structure that is more responsive to the agendas of ambition, efficiency, impact and country leadership.

Another critical element is access. We need to triple or even quintuple the level of resources that organizations manage and deliver. With existing systems, can we really deliver three times or five times what we are currently delivering?

How long does it take us to process things? This issue of access and efficiency is critical. We need scale, speed, and impact.

What are the fit-for-purpose systems and processes that will deliver this? Efficiency is again one of the key elements of our reform.

We are making strides in terms of reducing the time from project approval to first disbursement. We've come down from 19 months in 2021 to nine months last year.

And this year, we are doing even much better than that. We will end the year with a much lower median time.

We have also committed to reducing our project cycle from more than 24 months to nine months as of next year. This is our commitment.

Another critical element relates to the various institutions, and bringing the system together and a broad network of partnerships. We will not solve this with a handful of organizations. To tackle the climate crisis, we need to empower a vast network of organizations with comparative advantages.

Some are smaller, some larger, some public, some private, some closer to the communities. Others will have other comparative advantages. We need to empower and bring together this broad network of organizations.

And I see that as one of the distinct features and advantages of GCF because, as we speak here, we already have 139 partner organizations through which we deliver funding. And 87 of these are national and regional entities that have never accessed climate finance. 

But here's the unique opportunity. I have been working in this area for a long time. It's difficult to get the organizations to work together. Incentives are not there. It requires effort and the associated costs. 

But here's the unique opportunity we are embracing of not just empowering a broad network but actually trying to bring them together. If we bring them together, this sum can achieve a lot more in terms of ambition than each one of them going their separate ways.

There's a lot to be said about this reform. There is a reason why this (the international finance system) is called an architecture. It is called an architecture because there is a recognition that there's no single organization or type of organizations that holds the solution. This is why it's called an architecture or a system.

We need ambitious, coordinated action that combines the four pillars of finance: Domestic finance - How can we support countries to mobilize a lot more of their domestic finance for these purposes?

Private sector - How do we maximize the use of the private sector? What is the coalition of partners that need to come together to mobilize private sector at a scale that we have not yet seen?

The multilateral development banks (MDB) - There's a lot of discussion on MDBs.

And then the concessional capital, which is where GCF is centre stage.

We need to think of this system, of this architecture. We need these organizations to come together to have more relevant joint partnerships. If we really want to be serious about what we are trying to achieve, we need coherence and consistency of requirements.

Having multiple financial institutions in the same investment, all of them with different requirements just adds costs.

We need to work on this coherence and consistency of requirements and processes. It is what private sector calls standardization over ad hoc and bespoke approaches.

This is why GCF is very committed to continuing with the work with the other funds, the other multilateral climate funds, and why we have called for collaborative efforts, stronger collaborative efforts with the MDBs, to drive this coherence and ambition.

One of the key topics of discussion at this COP is the new collective quantified goal for climate finance. I hope—and I'm sure most of you hope as well—that it's ambitious.

We need an ambitious NCQG - an ambitious NCQG will offer a unique opportunity to accelerate reforms.

Right now, we do not have to answer the question, "What if your entity has the resources to manage three times what you've been managing, or two times, or five times?”

What will it take?

An ambitious NCQG will force us to think: What are the institutions we need; what do we need to have in place to deliver on that ambition on that scale? With whom do we need to work more closely to deliver on that ambition and scale?

Let me close by saying that we are living through very challenging times.

As we all know, pandemics, conflicts that seem to be on the rise, populism, nationalism, and the significant pursuit of short-term solutions are on the rise.

But we need to really look back at history. It is multilateralism and solidarity that have propelled us forward through times.

And, it is precisely in these very challenging times that we are asked, who are we? How do we define ourselves?

I call on all of us. We have a responsibility, those of us in this COP. As I said, we are the believers. We are the converted.

This is a moment for us to rise higher in the face of all these tailwinds. We have embraced this reform, the call for reform. We have started to deliver on it.

We are committed to continuing to double down. We stand ready to work with others, with all of you, to ensure that this finance system is agile, impactful, and just.

One of the people that I admire the most who unfortunately is no longer with us, is Nelson Mandela.

I always like to revisit some of these words, so I'll leave you with this: “When people are determined, they can overcome anything.”