This report lays out an agenda to enable societies around the world to undertake the kind of systemic actions that the transformation towards a low-emission, resilient future will require. It highlights 6 transformative areas and 20 actions that are key to aligning financial flows with climate and development goals in the areas of planning, innovation, public budgeting, financial systems, development finance and cities.
- Plan infrastructure for a low-emission and resilient future, by rethinking planning at all levels of governments to align current infrastructure project plans with long-term climate and development objectives, avoid carbon lock-in and make resilience the norm in infrastructure decisions.
- Unleash innovation to accelerate the transition, by deploying targeted innovation policies and accelerating the deployment of existing technologies, business models and services, swiftly moving the next generation of solutions from the lab to the market, and promoting international technology diffusion to make sure innovation benefits all.
- Ensure fiscal sustainability for a low-emission, resilient future, by diversifying sources of government revenue to reduce carbon entanglement, aligning fiscal and budgetary incentives with climate objectives and harnessing the power of public procurement and public institutions’ spending while ensuring an inclusive transition along the way.
- Reset the financial system in line with long-term climate risks and opportunities, by fixing biased incentives, capability gaps and inadequate climate risk disclosure and pricing that are hindering the allocation of finance to low-emission, resilient infrastructure.
- Rethink development finance for climate, by ensuring that development finance institutions have the resources, mandates and incentives to deliver transformative climate action, attract new investors and sources of finance by using concessional finance strategically, and help countries advance their climate agendas and build enabling environments and “climate markets”.
- Empower city governments to build low-emission and resilient urban societies, by developing capacity to more effectively plan and finance the right infrastructure, aligning national and local fiscal regulations with investment needs, and building climate-related and project finance capacity at the city level.