Nov 10, 2021
No doubt these are extraordinary, sobering times. We are living through a global pandemic that has taken more than 4.5 million lives and an unprecedented 225 million jobs. The crisis has also widened global inequality, particularly for women, youth, and low-skilled and informal workers.
Making matters even worse, the impacts of COVID-19 have rolled back gains in poverty reduction for the first time in over two decades, with the number of poor people increasing from 119 to 224 million people.
At the same time, several trillion dollars have been spent as a response to this crisis. But the large majority of these resources are not tackling persistent structural inequalities and they aren’t being directed toward green recovery initiatives. Of the more than $16 trillion spent on economic stimulus so far, less than 20% is supporting green recovery initiatives. As recently as last year, some 4 billion people still lacked a social safety net.
What does this tell us? Firstly, we need to learn from history. Following the 2008 financial crisis, recovery spending was neither green nor just. Public investments did not accelerate decarbonization or right the structural inequalities worldwide that persist and have since deepened.
Secondly, we need to make science-informed decisions. For nearly two decades, experts had issued successive warnings that health systems were unprepared for a global pandemic. Instead of heeding their call to action, the world proved them right—and here we are.
Now the science is sounding the alarm once again, this time on the climate emergency. Never before have we known so much about the state of our planet. The human, economic, and natural costs are mounting to the point where the question is no longer how we can prevent climate impacts. We’re now asking how many we can still prevent.
The answer will depend on us. If we want to rein in this crisis, then we have to do the hard work of shifting whole systems, markets, policymaking, and behaviors to meet this moment. It will require structural change at a speed and scale without precedent in modern history, and ensuring social justice and inclusion needs to guide us every step of the way.
This won’t be easy. Soaring speeches might make us feel good, but words on their own won’t deliver progress. Smart investments and bold decision-making, however, can and do.
Recent evidence shows us how. At the start of the pandemic, the public and private sectors joined forces to overcome political and financial barriers to accelerate development of a COVID-19 vaccine. The result was not one but several vaccines that have put many countries on the path to recovery.
So now we need to make history once again by investing in the policies, communities, and technologies that will usher in a climate-smarter world. In other words, a vaccine for our ailing climate.
Nowhere is this more important than in developing countries. Nations in the Global South are bearing the brunt of climate change impacts, and they have little to no fiscal space to respond sustainably to an emergency they bear little responsibility for creating. When you add to this the parallel COVID-19 crisis and heavy debt burdens, their capacity to act is even more hamstrung.
But make no mistake: developing countries are more than victims of climate change. They also hold the key to solving it outright.
Developing economies are on track to consume 70% of the world’s energy supply and represent 60% of total GDP. Amid such growth, they’re where two-thirds of the projected $90 trillion in infrastructure investments will take place.
The Paris Agreement and our shared climate future rest on how and where these investments are made. Will they be green? Or will they lock us into even more carbon-intensive growth?
At the Climate Investment Funds, we’re working every day to drive green, resilient investments across 72 developing countries. Since 2009, we’ve teamed up with multilateral, government, and private sector partners to channel over $60 billion in support of clean technologies, sustainable forestry solutions, and resilience-building initiatives.
CIF was established at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, a time of great political and financial uncertainty. Our investments have since shown that targeted climate finance can spur green investment that would otherwise not happen because of perceived risk.
They’ve also shown green investments are good for job creation and creating economic value. Our programs are supporting more than 6 million climate-smart jobs and adding more than $45 billion to local economies.
But we have also learned that socially just transitions won’t happen just because we make climate investments. Deliberate decision-making and actions are needed to ensure that no one is left behind.
We need to invest in understanding how the transitions will impact communities and economies, and make investments where they can deliver social impact while meeting our climate goals. We also need to make sure that all relevant institutions are heard and involved in decision-making processes, in particular the affected communities.
This is easier said than done, in particular given that we are working against the clock. But lasting impact means bringing everyone along because the only way we’re getting there is together.
Social justice and climate justice are two sides of the same coin. And this is the currency of the future.
