EIB President Hoyer’s speech at “Friends of GCA high-level dialogue: an adaptation acceleration imperative for COP26” conference
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Your excellences, dear colleagues and friends,
It is a great honour for me to be in Rotterdam today, and to join this important dialogue, fostering a spirit of collaboration between multilateral institutions, national leaders and the private sector.
At the European Investment Bank, we have been working with so many of you. Thanks to this, we have made good progress to increase our support for climate adaptation, both in terms of adaptation finance and for the systematic screening for climate risk in all of our direct lending operations.
We recognise, however, that we must do more, together. At the European Investment Bank we stand ready to play our role as the EU Climate Bank: providing innovative financial solutions based on a deeper expertise in this field.
This is why the EIB will come forward with our first dedicated Adaptation Plan at COP26 and we aim to launch it there. Our plan will outline the EIB’s future ambition on adaptation and resilience globally. It also supports the implementation of the recently launched EU Adaptation Strategy.
Let me mention three areas that are particularly relevant for the discussion today:
First, with our Adaptation Plan, we want to contribute to bridging the knowledge gap and to supporting smarter adaptation. We aim to do this by promoting the use of robust climate data and by supporting our clients in building greater resilience to climate change.
Second, we want to contribute to bridging the finance gap and to increasing the impact of the finance we provide. This will include working with the private sector to identify investment opportunities in climate-resilient technologies, products and services.
Thirdly, we want to support inclusive growth and create economic opportunities in the regions and communities that are the least able to cope with a changing climate.
We know that we cannot achieve these ambitions alone. Partnerships are at the heart of our Adaptation Plan and at the heart of effective adaptation action.
We need partnerships bringing together climate science, policy and finance - partnerships that are centred on the needs of climate vulnerable countries and communities.
In this context, I am delighted to announce the EIB’s intention to partner with the Global Center on Adaptation. As we develop our partnership in the run-up to COP26, we look forward to working more closely with the GCA on two key areas.
We will collaborate on supporting knowledge, tools and capacity building and on financing adaptation solutions, including through the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Programme.
At the European Investment Bank, we will greatly benefit from the GCA’s expertise as a solutions broker for adaptation. We are also bringing in our experience in financing all types of operations and in supporting innovation, from early stages of development to more mature technologies.
I hope our future partnership will entail fruitful collaboration with the many friends and partners present here today. I am therefore excited to hear your ideas on how we can create effective partnerships for adaptation in the future.
Thank you very much!