France sets out plans to boost climate funding
FRENCH Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire appealed to the rich world to provide more financial help to the poor countries facing the greatest threats from climate change ahead of talks in Paris on Thursday (Jun 22).
President Emmanuel Macron is hosting world leaders including Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, as well as US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, to discuss new ways to raise climate financing.
The summit aims to build momentum for an overhaul of the global lending architecture so that multilateral institutions such as the World Bank can do more to help developing nations deal with climate change.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she and President Joe Biden both believe it is critical to maintain communication to manage the US’s relationship with China and to “clear up misperceptions, miscalculations.”
“We need to work together where possible but we have disagreements and we are also forthright in recognising where we do have disagreements,” she said at a press conference in Paris.
Yellen was asked whether she agreed with an off-the-cuff remark by Biden this week likening Xi Jinping to a “dictator.”
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“I’m certainly pleased to see China participating in this summit,” she added. “I believe it’s important, as President Biden does, that the world’s two largest economies are united in working multilaterally and together in addressing global challenges.”
France will push delegates to consider the feasibility of new taxes on maritime transport, how to improve debt restructuring and bolster the firepower of international institutions, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on RFI radio ahead of the summit.
The French minister said multilateral development banks could raise around $200 billion to tackle climate change in the coming months by leveraging their balance sheets and taking more risk. He also said countries “can and will” meet their pledge to recycle $100 billion of the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights to fund lending to poor countries.
“All together we are looking at hundreds of billions of dollars,” Le Maire said. BLOOMBERG
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