UN Secretary-General Taps UN Special Envoy Michael R. Bloomberg to Lead Climate Finance Leadership Initiative
During the week of the 73rd UN General Assembly in New York, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres tapped Michael R. Bloomberg, the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action, to lead an initiative that will support a global mobilization of private capital in response to the challenge of climate change. The Climate Finance Leadership Initiative will work to fulfill the private financing objectives included in the landmark Paris Agreement, which reaffirmed the goal of mobilizing at least $100 billion per year by 2020 through a combination of public development finance and private foreign direct investment.
“Mobilizing resources from the public and private sectors is critical to tackling the issue of climate change,” said Secretary-General Guterres. “In this year of action leading up to my climate summit, I am pleased Mike Bloomberg, my Special Envoy for Climate Action, has agreed to convene private sector leaders through this initiative and work closely with leading governments to help ensure we can meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement.”
Finance is critical to achieving the nationally determined goals laid out by governments under the Paris Agreement, and to enabling the enhanced ambition of cities, states and regions to contribute to such goals. The Climate Finance Leadership Initiative will draw members from top international financial firms and corporations to catalyze scaled up investments in clean energy and climate resilience projects around the world, in both developed and emerging markets. The initiative will have a one-year term culminating in a UN Climate Summit to be held in September 2019. Founding members will be announced before the end of the year...