The World’s Biggest Climate Fund has Launched: Now What?

[Music] hello everyone how are you all and this is going to be a difficult interview because coming after uh Her Excellency um and that fabulous fabulous presentation that she just made um we've a lot of work to do we have to keep the energy up um your highness thank you for for joining us uh today and for your ongoing leadership um on these very important issues we are here uh today um to talk about two major Legacy initiatives from cop 28 uh for those of you who are very good at math you'll know that it was one year to the day today the cop 28 ended in Dubai we've had a year since we're going to look at these two um major initiatives you've got um the Altera climate Finance fund we're joined here by Ambassador Majid elaidi and the global climate Finance Center uh joined by um the center CEO mer Mercedes V moner so I'm going to uh start with you Ambassador um Altera was introduced cop 28 as a 30 billion fund designed to catalyze private investment in um climate Solutions what's the past year been like well first of all thank you so much for having us here today it's really great um and your highness thank you for being with us uh your highness has been one of an example of the leadership we've had in the UAE and cop 28 was also the result of that leadership that we've had from our president Muhammad bin Zed and our leadership in the UAE who've really had for a long time a vision that we need to have economic growth and prosperity but we need to do that in a sustainable way Altera is really an extension of that we the great success we saw at cop 28 was the result of the uae's Diplomatic effort to bring the world together and one of the key Legacy outcomes from that as we traveled around the world was that we saw clearly that Finance today was just not getting particularly to the places where it was needed most in fact if we want to bring global temperatures down we need to bring Finance up and a simple stat that I learned about just the other day was that in 2023 we had 700 billion of investment across sustainability um and development and 0.5% of that went to the global South and we really need to transform that equation we need to see much more flows happening in the global South because that's where the bulk of emissions are going and that's where Altera is really a GameChanger over the last year we have with our partners Brookfield tpg and black rock invested across seven strategies and most excitingly we've created two new strategies with Brookfield and tpg where we've seeded those strategies the Consultants told us we would probably get one times or two times our Capital we're in a fund raise phase now we've got up to nine times our capital and we're still raising and with black rock we're very excited because we've been able to take one of their existing strategies revamp it and boost it and so we have three brand new strategies that are focused on the global South and we think that we're well on track to flipping that equation so going well so far but a lot of work to do um that that percentage that the global South is is Tiny and we need to and it's just incredible the work that you're doing to to try and flip that as you say Mercedes I'm going to go to you now there was a an iconic photograph last year at cop 28 where it was you and our our chairman uh along with people like Larry thinkink from Black Rock and the president of the World Bank and the CEO of HSBC and all of these big global leaders getting onto the stage at the sustainable Finance Forum at cop helping to to join together to launch the global climate Finance Center how does gcfc complement initiatives like Altera you know how are you working together what does that all look like thank you Chris uh your highness um great work first of all um so the gcfc was launched at cop 28 creis with a very important objective in mind which is about making Capital um mobilized capital for climate finance and establish Abu Dhabi the UAE as a global climate Finance Hub our journey that iconic picture that you mentioned started with a key question from our leadership how do we make climate Finance available affordable and accessible and while ala has already made significant steps steps in answering that question the breath C of initiatives that were launched at cop 28 meant that there was a need for a platform for accountability that will help move those initiatives from announcements into effective tangible outcomes while at the same time building an entire ecosystem in Abu Dhabi as a cop 28 Legacy so the way gcfc complements the work of aldera is by fulfilling two main objectives the first objective is to serve as the Secretariat of three main initiatives that were launched at cop 28 those initiatives looked at the entire ecosystem from your macro to the mro level of the economy the first one the global climate Finance framework that has been signed by 15 countries accounting for 40% of the global GDP one level down on the economy is the African green investment initiative this is a 4.5 billion initiative to be deployed by 2030 uh in collaboration with EAD Credit Insurance Abu Dhabi farm from development Mazda aora 50 on the ground Africa 50 on the ground and gcfc serving as the Secretariat and then finally and not less important this is more about Innovation and we just talked about it we host the Secretariat of innovate for climate Tech which is about promoting ventor Capital startups Into Climate because there needs to be solutions to invest correct you know needs Innovation while at the same time we need to work on building the entire ecosystem we need to deliver on those initiatives but building that ecosystem how do we do that how do we complement Altera by working on what constitutes regulatory Frameworks policies transparencies research and data serving as a platform for collaboration and raising capacity building there's only real you know one real way to solve this and that's to collaborate to work together and it's great to see the gcfc being a facilitator of that collaboration um I'm going to go back to the Ambassador um the risking Investments again as we've just heard in emerging markets in the global sou is a a significant challenge in climate Finance highers Altera pioneering innovative solutions it's all about Solutions at the end of the day what of the solutions that you're pioneering to unlock greater Capital flows to the places that need um so you give me some specific examples so as we started this work we brought together the sort of best financial Minds in the UAE Mercedes was one of those who helped us with that work and what we what we heard from that community and we brought in the lights of Black Rock and and tpg and Brookfield and and many others in that discussion was that if we wanted to scale we needed to keep it safe simple and so what we have done initially with our partners in Brookfield and and tpg in particular and with black rock is we've given this done this sort of uh first in capped out model um but this is our first attempt to try to say how can we do something really simple that investors can understand that then can um they can come in behind and by the way we've seen as I've already mentioned a phenomenal response to that and we've gotten t nine times our capit Capital um but we need to go further we need to innovate we're in this early phase where we're going to deploy some of these these strategies and these models learn and see how they work and then as we go to the next phase going forward we expect that we will get more sophisticated and and smarter about how we do it but the key thing is is that I've seen is that we have seen that investors want vehicles to be able to invest in the global South the key thing is is when we've talked about risk and barriers as we were traveling around the world in preparation for cop 28 a lot of it was around perception a lot of it was around constraints that institutional investors had about how they could invest in the global South and what we at Altera hope we can do is by setting example by taking that first step we can break down some of those barriers some of those misconceptions UAE is a country of the global South we we know how to invest in the global South and we feel comfortable doing so and we know that when you invest in these communities it makes economic sense because that's where the future of population growth that's the the future of development and that this is a by the way an Economic Opportunity if we think that we need 9 trillion in investment annually around the world to keep Global temperature under 1.5 we often think of that as this major burden but if we think about that as possibly a 9 trillion an Economic Opportunity a new economy a new future economy then Altera is not just a climate fund it's a future investment vehicle it's how are we investing in the systems of the future and remember we a lot of people think of us as just an energy Fund in fact we in invest across four pillars we invest across clean energy that's true because it's two-thirds of global emissions but we also invest in climate technology we invest in uh industrial decarbonization how can we do industry more efficiently and more um em with lower emissions by the way that's the bottom line of most of these heavy Industries and then sustainable living that's covering water Agriculture and many of these issues the previous speaker was just talking about the raise rise of AI the energy demand that is going to be required in the future cannot be met by current energy supplies so we need these systems to be invested in if we are going to not only meet those energy demands because they are far out stripping the supply but do that in a way that is sustainable and is clean and ensures the future for our planet and and future Generations it it's it's a it's about sustainable investment so it's about investing in a sustainable way and when you said there about the Economic Opportunity I think it's a fabulous point someone told me recently three out of the four largest economies in the world in 2030 will be in the global sou and it's you know a really important place to be look in uh today um can I mention we had on Saturday um our first annual meeting of Altera where we brought together some of the best people from finance and from industry and we had these Round Table discussions and one of uh our great UA stakeholders uhi who many in the room will know he raised a simple point if you took 1% of the largest G20 economies from the global South and raise those folks from a lower income to a middle income what would be the impact on energy what would be the impact on food what would be the impact on uh water what would be the impact on living you're talking about hundreds of millions of people who are going to be moving in the coming decades into a better standard of living and the energy requirements and the the requirements that they are going to have is both an economic opportunity but also one where we need to be thinking about how we do that in a in a sustainable way the the world's greatest Innovation Challenge as they say and I know your your partners are taking this all very seriously I I the privilege of being in New York about four weeks ago where I interviewed Larry fin for Abu Dhabi Finance week and of the 40 minutes I spent with him 15 or 20 of those minutes he was talking about Altera and what you folks are doing here um and a week later they announced their setup in 0gm so they're they're not partnering with you from New York and it's all very remote they're not coming here they're not setting up they're not investing in Abu Dhabi just to be close to what you folks are are doing um so that's you know I think a very very um current example of how seriously your partners are actually taking this opportunity um I'm going to go back to Mercedes uh we've got 30 seconds left and usually I'm the one standing at the side of the stage sing to get off but I'll have one final question um to you both actually what message we've got a few hundred people here would you like to convey to all sources of capital private philanthropic public institutions looking to Exhilarate climate action what's your message to these people in front of us that climber Finance is the greatest investment opportunity of Our Generation but it needs to be accelerated and in order to be accelerated we need to focus on three issues impact mobilization and performance so let me start quickly with mobilization we need to come up and scale up Innovative Financial products on impact we need to ensure that every single dollar it's being measured and come up with a clear outcome and on performance and it was raised earlier we need to ensure that climate Finance not only delivers on environmental but also on financial returns establishing itself as a mainstream invest strategy Ambassador I think that I've been really heartened by the response that we've seen from Global Partners and particularly I think it's a testament to um the work that Mercedes has done at the gcfc but also adgm in positioning the UAE as a global Center you mentioned yourself we're seeing fund managers coming here to the UAE because they can see that here people understand that this is an economic uh opportunity we we need to shift the climate conversation from a conversation about what we're taking away from people to what we're giving people and finance can do that we need to start to bring institutional investors and show them that there is these are great Investments and that these are great opportunities and I think that as we're taking steps forward we're well on track to doing that and I I feel really excited about the future of that here in the UAE right on time right on time summary from me this opportunity is Big it's important it's the rise of the global South it's the new Energy Solutions it's the rise of AI and what that's going to mean all by 2030 and right here in the capital of green Capital so thank you very much everyone and thank you to Our Guest today [Music]