Global Eyes on China｜UN Adviser Selwin Hart on Mobilizing Climate Finance

During the High-level Week of the 79th UN General Assembly in New York, climate change has once again become a central global concern. As the climate crisis intensifies, particularly with the rise in extreme weather events, countries around the world, especially developing nations, are facing unprecedented environmental and economic challenges.

One of the key issues is how to integrate Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into financial decisions and strengthen climate finance mechanisms to support developing countries in their efforts to combat climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and achieve a green transition.

Climate finance involves mobilizing funds from various sources, including international organizations, governments, private enterprises, and green bonds, to assist developing nations in tackling the climate crisis. These funds are not only directed toward reducing emissions but also enhancing resilience to extreme weather events and improving the socio-economic structures of these countries to achieve sustainable development.

In an exclusive interview with Southern Finance, Selwin Hart, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Action and Assistant Secretary-General for the Climate Action Team, emphasized the importance of climate finance. He pointed out that developing nations are not only the primary victims of climate change but also essential participants in the global response to the crisis. However, high financing costs, heavy debt burdens, and insufficient technological support have slowed their progress in the renewable energy revolution and carbon reduction efforts.

Hart called on the international community, particularly developed nations and financial institutions, to increase their financial support for these countries. He urged the adoption of innovative financing tools, such as green bonds and carbon market mechanisms, to help developing countries combat climate change while achieving economic growth and sustainable development.

Southern Finance: Climate finance is often cited as a key barrier to effective global climate action. So what step is the United Nations taking to mobilize and scale up financial support for climate adaption and mitigation in developing countries?

Selwin Hart:Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak to you about the existential crisis of climate, but also climate represents one of the greatest opportunities for growth and development in the developing world, and I'll explain it a bit.

The reality is that we're not on track to meet our climate goals. So it tells us very clearly that in order for us to prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need to rapidly reduce emissions. And we're not on target, but the reality is that over the course of the last few years we've made, I would say since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, we've made really great progress. In 2016, one year after the Paris Agreement was adopted, we celebrated the installation of 180 gigawatts of renewable energy, and that year 700,000 electric vehicles were sold. Last year, over 510 gigawatts of clean power were installed globally, an increase of two and a half times new record, and close to 14 million electric vehicles were sold globally.

So we are making some progress, but the challenge is that behind these impressive numbers we have a number of uncomfortable facts. One is that we're still not moving fast enough, as I said this earlier, to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis. And secondly, most of the developing world is being left behind in the race to net zero. Countries representing two-thirds of the global population attracted just 15% of clean energy investments last year. So this challenge of mobilizing climate finance to help these countries to accelerate and to meaningfully participate in the renewable revolution is one of our greatest priorities.

At the same time, the developing countries, are on the front lines of the climate crisis. Many of them don't have access to Early Warning Systems, and many of them are being battered by climate impacts, floods, droughts, extreme weather, heat waves.

So one of the key essential missions of the United Nations is to help the developing world mobilize the finance they need at scale to meaningfully participate in the renewable energy revolution, and also to help them to protect and safeguard their citizens. We know what the challenges are, high cost of capital, excessive debt, lack of capacity, and on all of these fronts we're trying to use the entire system to support countries overcome these real barriers that they're currently facing.

Southern Finance: You mentioned a lot of challenges that developing countries are facing. So with more countries implementing climate-related regulations, what impact do you foresee on international trade, global trade, especially for carbon-intensive industries, and how can the United Nations help ensure a more smooth transition?

Selwin Hart:So it will be absolutely key that this transition is orderly and that the transition is just, and that as part of the transition, developing countries don't have to choose between taking climate action and development.

Southern Finance: Not sacrificing financial goals, right?

Selwin Hart:Yes, exactly. And it's a real challenge for the developing world to, one, they're being battered by climate impacts, and at the same time they also need to rapidly transform their economies, they need to exit coal, they need to make these massive investments. So we really need an international system that caters to the challenges that this group of countries and individual countries face.

Now, the developing countries are not all the same, right? You have large economies that can, some don't need public finance, but the majority of developing countries need public finance. You also have many, many developing countries that have unsustainable levels of debt, and the international community needs to respond in a way to provide these countries with the fiscal space that they need. And it hasn't been done in the past, and I'll give you one example.

At present, low-income, according to our colleagues at OCTAD, low-income and low-middle-income countries are currently spending 24 and 13 percent respectively of their export revenues servicing debt, the servicing debt, the Spain debt service. Now, after World War II, Germany's export revenue to debt service ratio was capped at 5 percent, because it was recognized that Germany needed fiscal space in order to grow and rebuild after the war. Now, we're facing a climate crisis. We know that countries need fiscal space in order to make the investments in renewable energy. They need fiscal space in order to make the investments in Early Warning Systems and to adapt and build the resilience of their economies and societies to the climate crisis. And we need tools at the global level able to support these countries.

And we also need an open and free trading system that will allow countries really to trade freely in many of the solutions that the world needs to solve this climate crisis.

Southern Finance: To solve the climate crisis, so what is the greatest challenge that developing countries and also developed countries are facing?

Selwin Hart:Well, I believe that the greatest challenge is not the technologies. As I said, the technologies have never been cheaper. The technologies have never been more accessible.

You know, what we're seeing in China in terms of the rapid uptake in renewables, what we're seeing in many of the advanced economies in terms of the rapid uptake in renewables, electric vehicles, as I said, in just eight years, the sale of electric vehicles have increased by 20 times, right? And the projections are even higher. So it's not a problem of the technologies.

I think the problem is political will, right? I believe that it's a matter of political will, and political will from different perspectives. Domestically, many leaders are still not willing to take on the vested interests domestically that are still holding on to the fossil fuel-based economy. And I'll give you one example, fossil fuel subsidies. You know, governments are still – are spending nine times more to make fossil fuels cheaper for consumers than they are for clean energy sources. Yes, we need to ensure that energy prices don't – we need to cushion the shock of energy prices, especially for poor people, but nine times more for fossil fuels than on clean energy. So countries need to repurpose how they support fossil fuels.

And internationally, we know that we need international cooperation more than ever. We cannot allow the geopolitical divides. We can't allow this breakdown in trust between developed and developing countries to erode the cooperation, the international cooperation that we badly need to solve this crisis. No one country can solve the climate crisis alone. Countries need to work together to understand each other and find ways of addressing many of the challenges. So we need political will for countries to be bold domestically.

And we're hoping that this new round of nationally determined contributions, that this process that countries agreed to undertake on the Paris Agreement, they have until next year to prepare their new climate plans, that countries will be bold and show leadership in putting ambitious but achievable new climate goals on the table, as well as commit to work much closer together to address some of the challenges that we all face.

Southern Finance: If we take a closer look in China, because China right now is the world's largest producer of renewable energy technologies, such as you just mentioned, EV cars, as well as solar panels. So how does the United Nations view China's role in driving international climate finance, and how can China contribute more further to global finance?

Selwin Hart:China has an important and critical leadership role to play now and moving forward. It's the second largest economy, and at current levels, greenhouse gas emissions are the highest. But it's also the global renewable energy powerhouse and superpower. When one looks at the amount of renewable energy that is being made and installed in China, the number of electric vehicles, and the fact that China has been such an impressive global leader on renewables, it has made the cost of renewables decline for the rest of the world. So we need that growth to continue, we need that leadership to continue.

And as I said earlier, one of the biggest concerns that we have is that in the developing world, the developing world is being left behind. Outside of the advanced economies and China, the clean energy investments last year were 85%. The rest of the world, it was just 15%, and this is two-thirds of the global population. So we need a lot of the investments in clean energy. We need to see more renewable energy being installed in the developing world. In Africa, we have 600 million persons who still don't have access to electricity. Those 600 million persons should have access to renewable, clean electricity generation. And we know that many of the developing countries, many of them are eager and willing to move from coal to renewable energy. And I believe that China will have a very important role in helping to spur the new – to support the energy transformation globally, but in particular in the developing world.

We're also working very closely with China on Early Warning Systems. They were one of the first countries to support the Early Warnings for all initiatives of the Secretary General. So we see, as I said, China playing an increasingly important role in supporting the global transition to a renewable energy future, but also helping the vulnerable developing countries to adapt to increasing the more frequent and severe climate impacts.

And we know that there are some challenges. And as the Secretary General repeatedly says, the United Nations is all in. We will use the convening power of the United Nations responsibly to help us to address some of the challenges that we're seeing with the transition.

出品：南方財經全媒體集團

欄目策劃：於曉娜

欄目統籌：向秀芳

出鏡記者：周蕊

翻譯&製作：周蕊 段伊航（實習生）

設計：林軍明 廖苑妮