Under its current strategy, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has committed to dedicating most of its investments to support the transition to a green economy by 2025. Alignment with the Paris Agreement would commit the Bank to only making investments consistent with the goals of the 2030 Agenda, namely, holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit that increase to 1.5°C.
The EBRD aims to fully align its activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation, adaptation and finance within the next 20 months.
EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso said, during her speech on the occasion of the bank’s 30th anniversary, that the proposal is that by the beginning of 2023, everything it does will be aligned with the Paris Agreement, adding that this would be a landmark step in the bank’s approach, and will further support all the economies in which it invests in their low-carbon transition.
One of the major challenges for governments today is to raise the amount of money going to climate finance from billions to the trillions the low -carbon transition requires. The EBRD’s focus on mobilizing the private sector gives the bank a unique role to play in making this happen. Support for the private sector was one of the founding principles of the EBRD when it was established 30 years ago today to foster the transition towards open market-oriented economies and to promote private and entrepreneurial initiative.
The most urgent crisis now is overcoming the coronavirus pandemic and securing the recovery. The EBRD invested a record 11 billion euros in 2020 in response to the crisis and will continue to stand by its clients and the economies where it invests.
