Statement from Professor Lord Nicholas Stern on COP26

Welcoming the publication of the draft of the decision (draft text on 1/CMA.3) from the meeting at COP26 of the Parties to the Paris Agreement, Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said: “The draft text includes two crucial paragraphs on future levels of financial support for investment in developing countries. It would be a serious mistake to make major changes to these paragraphs by adding targets for future finance, as these are likely to be much lower than the levels of support for investment in mitigation, adaptation and development that can and should be provided from a range of public and private sources to accelerate the transition to sustainable, inclusive and resilient economic development and growth in poor countries.

“An attempt to put numbers into the finance paragraphs now will lower ambition and undermine the crucial logic of building the different sources. It is understandable that there is anger about the failure by rich countries to deliver the $100 billion by 2020 that was promised in 2009-10. That failure is a breach of trust.  But the whole purpose now is to get serious sums, especially from the private sector, behind the action and investment needed, and the right kind of finance in the right place at the right time. A number now will undermine the whole story. We have real chance of creating something much bigger and better during the next year ahead of COP27. The rich world must deliver the $100 billion very quickly, indeed next year without moving the goalposts. Now is the time to move beyond that.”