President Hoyer: “We need an alliance of those willing to make a difference”

President Hoyer participated in the One Planet high level pledging conference with the Green Climate Fund on “Scaling up blended finance for low carbon and green transition”.

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Ladies and gentlemen,

Humanity is at a crossroads. During my 30+ years in public life, I have experienced world changing events first-hand – such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and more recently the financial crisis. It feels to me like we are going through a similar seismic shift that will change our direction of travel for decades to come.

We have seen the millions of young people all around the world protesting against political and business leaders that are too slow to react to the climate crisis. Their protest has spearheaded change in elections across Europe. They are writing the sustainable, inclusive growth story that is long overdue. Change is here to stay.

And this change is challenging the essence of our economic activities. As Marc Carney, Governor of the Bank of England recently warned, firms that ignore the climate crisis will go bankrupt.

It follows that those economies that do not sufficiently adapt will fall behind.

Ladies and gentlemen, all of us in this room are united around the belief that we must do more. The historic Paris accord set the direction of travel but procrastination has tempered our ambitions…Business as usual is a powerful deterrent to changing behaviour.

We need an alliance of those willing to make a difference. For this reason, I wholeheartedly support the One Planet coalition and all those partners from the public and private sectors who work together to bring about change.

We know that the One Planet approach aims to be global, strategic, and transformational.

… That commitments are expected to be followed by real action and regular progress reports.

…We know that the aim is to generate new business models in climate, the oceans, and biodiversity.

I am standing before you today to make clear the commitment of the EIB – the EU bank – to do just that.

We will deliver global, strategic and transformational investments in climate, the oceans and biodiversity.

…We will position the EIB as an incubator for climate finance and expertise to mobilize others, helping our societies and economies transform to a low carbon future.

…And we will be accountable through regular reports of our progress and impact.

With EUR 150 billion of climate action and environment lending since 2012, the EIB Group is already the largest multilateral provider of finance for projects supporting climate action and other environmental objectives in the world.

So, we are not new to this. But I know the EIB must be more ambitious! We need to develop new markets and new products, like we did with green bonds.

We have listened to the calls from President Macron in March this year, as well as the wishes of the European Council and President-elect of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to be more ambitious.

During my speech at the UN General Assembly last month, I highlighted our new ambition.

This rests on three pillars:

First – We aim to align all of EIB Group’s financing activities with the principles and goals of the Paris Agreement by the end of 2020. As an important first step, this will include phasing out energy projects that depend solely on fossil fuels.

Second - We aim to increase EIB financing for climate and environment to 50% by 2025. 

Third - By working with our public and private partners and developing innovative business models, we aim to unlock at least EUR 1 trillion of investment by 2030.

This will entail organisational changes within the EIB Group, but we will be ready.

We must appreciate that climate change mitigation and adaptation also constitute a burden and this burden is not equally distributed. 

Therefore, it will be important to facilitate a just transition for those facing the greatest challenge. We will need to support growth and jobs in these regions. Failure to do so would weaken Europe’s sustainable growth, but also the strength of the European project. This is not an option.

Thank you very much!