Opportunities to mobilize resources to fight climate change

In the Ninth Latin American and Caribbean Forum on Carbon (FLACC 2015, for its acronym in Spanish), which was held in Chile between September 9th and 11th, representatives from the governments of the whole region and of key companies agreed to request, in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21), the inclusion of climate financing and market instruments.

Ligia Castro, Director of Environment and Climate Change at CAF, expressed, "It is important to build bridges between the countries of Latin america to coordinate policies, methodologies, and procedures that allow the region to migrate toward low in carbon and resilient to climate economies for the construction of sustainable development. In this respect, CAF will support the countries in the implementation of actions and projects that come from national contributions". She added that CAF has a green portfolio that represents 24 percent of its portfolio and expects to increase it to 30 percent by 2020. 

The Forum also highlighted that the gap between the actions of the  public and private sectors is an opportunity to mobilize the necessary climate financing to fight against climate change in the region. Successful examples in the use of market approaches were shown, such as the Clean Development Mechanism, innovative financial instruments, and carbon pricing mechanisms that are promoting the unfolding of climate financing in the region. The need to continue using these instruments in the long term was reiterated.  

The FLACC 2015 was organized into eight plenary sessions, 12 thematic workshops, and four parallel events which included the participation of more than 400 people from 48 countries, high officials, policymakers, project developers, and investors. The meeting was supported by the success of last year's Forum in Bogota, Colombia.

The event was organized by the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the World Bank Group, The Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE, for its acronym in Spanish), the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the UNEP DTU Partnership, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and CAF, Development Bank of Latin America.