COP28’s Business Philanthropy Climate Forum concluded its first day on Friday, December 1 with the announcement of a range of climate and nature initiatives, and commitments to mobilise $5bn in collective funding.
The Forum, held across the COP28 Blue Zone and Green Zone, brought together more than 1,300 key stakeholders, including Heads of State and government, business CEOs, philanthropists and NGO heads, who assembled to help showcase and accelerate progress on climate targets and industry transitions.
The Business Philanthropy Climate Forum is the first dedicated platform for the private sector and philanthropy to be included in the COP process.
COP28 Business Philanthropy Climate Forum
The forum included a full-day session focused on fostering innovation and driving impact in areas including sustainable climate finance, coral restoration, green technology, energy and industry transition, sustainable food systems, and empowering SMEs.
Addressing the Forum, COP28 President Dr. Sultan Al Jaber said: “To fix climate finance, we must leverage the knowledge, resources and power of the private sector to ensure we deliver necessary funding to those in need, particularly in the Global South.
“COP28 is committed to directing capital from multiple sources to meet the trillions required to attack emissions, so we can all shepherd a just, orderly transition.”
COP28 Special Representative for Business and Philanthropy, Badr Jafar, said: “Business and philanthropy hold great promise to accelerate the achievement of our climate and nature goals.
“The Business Philanthropy Climate Forum provides this much-needed inclusive platform for enabling concerted action, breaking down silos across stakeholders and sectors, and connecting private sector leaders from all regions of the world around game-changing outcomes underpinned by the COP28 Action Agenda”.
The forum featured a distinguished panel that discussed blended finance commitments.
Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, opened the panel, emphasising the role of blended finance in securing capital for the green transition.
Mark Gallogly, Chair of Allied Climate Partners Co-Founder of Three Cairns Group, and Tobias C. Pross, CEO of Allianz Global Investors, collectively mobilised $5bn in funding to unlock $20bn.
For the first time ever as part of the official COP programme, a range of private sector initiatives were discussed and announced.
The forum is also focused on the need to align country, industry and finance roadmaps, and involve multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to create an enabling environment for private capital.
Green Climate Fund, Allied Climate Partners and Allianz Global Investors collectively announced to mobilise $5bn through several unique blended finance structures, bringing together philanthropies, development finance institutions (DFIs), and the private and public sectors, to turbocharge the climate transition in emerging economies.
This commitment is poised to unlock $20bn or more, propelling us forward on the accelerated path towards climate transition.
Rishi Kapoor, co-CEO of Investcorp, announced the launch of its new Climate Solutions investment platform, targeting around $750m of growth capital investments to help rapidly scale category-leading companies that provide products, services and technologies to support decarbonisation and address the impacts of climate change globally.
A key aspect of Investcorp’s strategy is the recognition that scaling commercially proven climate solutions will enable broad-based availability of much-needed decarbonisation products and services at attractive price points for the Global South.
Børge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum (WEF), announced the First Movers Coalition for Food, which will co-develop and aggregate procurement commitments to transform food supply chains.
The coalition is convened by the World Economic Forum, and it will bring together businesses, governments, and knowledge partners interested in building marketplaces for more sustainable, inclusive, and healthy food systems.
By applying the First Movers Coalition model launched in 2020 to food systems, the coalition is expected to create a combined procurement commitment with an estimated value of $10bn-$20bn by 2030 for sustainably produced, low-emission and nature-positive agri-food commodities.
Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE revealed the impact of XPRIZE’s three decades of moonshot competitions, which have catalysed a force of more than 35,000 innovators from 148 countries to collectively invest more than $2bn in building solutions for some of the world’s greatest challenges.
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