COP & the hard parts of net zero

Attendees at December's United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) left with a renewed understanding of the importance of helping underdeveloped economies fund their decarbonisation efforts, according to Anna Hancock, Executive Director from Pollination.

Speaking to Sarah Foley, a Manager of Sustainable Finance at ANZ Institutional, Hancock said many discussions at COP surrounded the challenge those nations faced accessing finance, particularly when they have undeveloped balance sheets and financial disclosures.

These talks addressed “what it takes for multiple participants to come into those spaces and provide early-stage funding, particularly where the payback might be over a long period of time”, she said.

“I'm really expecting that there'll be tremendous focus on the role that mature financing institutions can provide into those harder-to-reach parts of the global economy.”

You can watch an edited version of the conversation on video below. You can also watch part one of this two-part discussion here.

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The discussions were a “very crystallising moment for efforts and conversations within businesses and within institutions,” Hancock said, particularly around support for smaller nations dealing with the costs of climate disasters.

Summits like COP are critically important for “surfacing the importance of climate mitigation efforts”, she said – and this 2023 edition had brought “enormous progress”.

“We can expect the fairness, the participation and the stories around innovative models of finance provision to really continue.”