Berlin (dpa) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has voiced support for greater reliance on private investment to fund climate action. “Any discussion based only on public funding pledges does not go nearly far enough. We need a new approach to funding of climate action worldwide,” Scholz said at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin. The event at the Federal Foreign Office, in which representatives of 40 countries are participating, is regarded as an important milestone on the path to the COP29 climate conference in the Azerbaijan capital Baku.
Scholz referred to the fact that experts estimate that 2.4 billion US dollars (roughly 2.2 billion euros) per year will be needed to fund the transition to climate-friendly energy in developing and emerging economies by 2030. “That is a gigantic sum,” stressed Scholz. “With the best will in the world, public money alone, especially from just a relatively small group of countries, will not be enough for investments on this scale.” Funding climate action needed to be based to a much greater extent on facilitating private investments in sustainable growth, he added.
