IDB / Glas­gow — The In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) to­day an­nounced that its loans and projects will be ful­ly aligned with the Paris cli­mate agree­ment by 2023. This move will help coun­tries through­out Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean fight cli­mate change while al­so ad­vanc­ing steps to help those peo­ple most vul­ner­a­ble with a sus­tain­able re­cov­ery for every­one.

The an­nounce­ment comes as world lead­ers gath­ered at COP26, the an­nu­al Unit­ed Na­tions cli­mate change con­fer­ence, to work on ways to de­cel­er­ate glob­al warm­ing and ful­fil cli­mate goals agreed to at a pre­vi­ous sum­mit in Paris.

Align­ment re­quires the IDB Group’s work to be con­sis­tent with a coun­try’s net-ze­ro emis­sions and cli­mate-re­silient de­vel­op­ment goals. It must al­so be com­pat­i­ble with the Paris ac­cord’s over­all long-term de­car­boniza­tion ob­jec­tive.

“We are al­so push­ing past the Paris Agree­ment ob­jec­tives to help ad­dress this tru­ly glob­al chal­lenge. We know that if we pri­or­i­tize smart in­vest­ments to­day, the cor­ner­stone of our glob­al fight against cli­mate change can mu­tu­al­ly re­in­force our pan­dem­ic re­cov­ery ef­forts and we can speed up our re­spons­es”, said IDB Pres­i­dent Mauri­cio Claver-Carone.

“Align­ing our work to Paris Agree­ment ob­jec­tives fur­thers our com­mit­ment to lim­it the tem­per­a­ture rise to well be­low 2° Cel­sius and build cli­mate re­silience. But this alone is not enough.” 

Al­so, the IDB an­nounced an­oth­er am­bi­tious cli­mate tar­get to pro­vide $24 bil­lion for cli­mate and green fi­nance over the next four years. Green fi­nance ex­tends be­yond cli­mate to in­clude na­ture, bio­di­ver­si­ty, pol­lu­tion, and oth­er en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues.

The green fi­nance tar­get builds on the IDB Group’s es­tab­lished track record of back­ing projects to re­store and pre­serve nat­ur­al cap­i­tal, re­duce pol­lu­tion, im­prove waste man­age­ment, and pro­mote the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my. 

The IDB rec­og­nizes the vi­tal role of na­ture in cli­mate mit­i­ga­tion, re­silience and for economies and liveli­hoods. Be­cause of that, be­tween 2015 and 2020 the IDB in­vest­ed in 28 projects with na­ture-based so­lu­tions com­po­nents, with a to­tal fi­nanc­ing of $815 mil­lion. These projects lever­aged an ad­di­tion­al $437 mil­lion in fi­nanc­ing from part­ners, amount­ing to near­ly $1.25 bil­lion.

“We are push­ing the en­ve­lope on our fi­nanc­ing, im­prov­ing our in­ter­nal struc­ture to pri­or­i­tize cli­mate ac­tion, and in­creas­ing our en­gage­ments and ex­ter­nal part­ner­ships,” said Claver-Carone.

“Our role, as the re­gion’s lead­ing de­vel­op­ment bank, is to help our 26 bor­row­ing mem­ber coun­tries mit­i­gate and adapt to cli­mate risks. We are ready to help seize an un­prece­dent­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty to achieve a de­car­bonized and cli­mate-re­silient fu­ture in the re­gion.”

Ad­vanc­ing cli­mate change ac­tion is a cen­tral pil­lar of Vi­sion 2025, the IDB’s blue­print for pow­er­ing sus­tain­able growth and re­cov­ery in the re­gion. As­sess­ing the IDB’s align­ment will be key to avoid­ing ac­tiv­i­ties that could hin­der the tran­si­tion to net-ze­ro emis­sions. Align­ing op­er­a­tions will al­so im­prove the man­age­ment of cli­mate-re­lat­ed fi­nan­cial ex­po­sure in the IDB Group’s port­fo­lios.

In ad­di­tion to the align­ment ef­fort, the IDB is com­mit­ted to as­sess­ing dis­as­ter and cli­mate risk in 100% of its mod­er­ate and high-risk op­er­a­tions by 2023.

To­day’s an­nounce­ment al­so adds to the IDB’s on­go­ing work to help in­te­grate cli­mate con­sid­er­a­tions and fund­ing in­to the agen­das and poli­cies of mem­ber bor­row­ing coun­tries. By the end of 2021, at least 75% of the Bank’s re­gion­al mem­ber coun­tries will have pre­sent­ed their up­dat­ed Na­tion­al­ly De­ter­mined Con­tri­bu­tions, in many cas­es with IDB sup­port.