The UN's annual Climate Change Conference of the Parties takes place in Antalya, Türkiye Nov. 9-20, and in this episode of the All Things Sustainable podcast we explore what to expect.
COP31 will draw an estimated 100,000 participants from around the world, including heads of state, scientists, civil society representatives and business leaders. To understand how conversations about financing climate action and sustainable development will unfold, we talk to Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Special Envoy on Financing Sustainable Development.
Mahmoud's career as an economist and finance leader includes roles as Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, Senior Vice President at the World Bank Group, and UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for his home country of Egypt at COP27.
In the episode, Mahmoud points to an estimated $4 trillion annual financing gap that must be closed to achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, largely related to investment in infrastructure. And he outlines barriers to mobilizing more private sector investment to address that gap — including by building pipelines of bankable, investable projects.
"The capital is there," Mahmoud tells us in an interview at the Building Bridges Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. "What we need is basically these kind of projects aggregated in a way to attract the asset owners, asset managers and investors."
Explore S&P Global's COP31 Programming here: S&P Global at COP31 Türkiye
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here: S&P Global Energy Horizons - The Sustainability Weekly
Further reading: COP31 preview: Key issues and signals to watch (subscription required)
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