00:00I'm here with Ambroise Faul. He's the responsible at the EIB, the European Investment Bank,
00:06for everything climate action related, environmental development policy and so on.
00:10So welcome and thank you for joining us.
00:12First, let me ask you a broad question about all these supranational and national goals
00:16that are being trying to be met.
00:18They're not being met.
00:20Is it pointless having these goals in the first place because we're not getting where we need to be?
00:25Well, we are making a lot of progress.
00:27When you look at the climate commitments of multilateral development banks
00:32or their financing on climate projects, this is year after year a record level.
00:40So what you see is more and more multilateral development institutions,
00:45including the European Investment Bank, are developing projects that are targeting climate objectives.
00:51But what you see also at the same time is the impact of climate change in the real life of people.
00:58That is also something that explains why we have more and more projects to finance.
01:04In total, you have about 100 billion at your disposal for green and climate and development needs.
01:09You have about 50 billion dollars.
01:10So what we do at EIB is 90 percent oriented in Europe and 10 percent outside Europe.
01:23And what we have in terms of sharing of projects is 60 percent climate.
01:29The target we have in our objective is at least 50 percent.
01:36And the rest can be health projects, can be projects that have a significant impact, but not necessarily climate projects.
01:45The climate projects are mostly related to energy, renewable energy, energy efficiency.
01:53We can also do nuclear.
01:56And we have also projects that are related to innovation in the green industry.
02:04So let me ask you about that, because there is a bit of a bifurcation.
02:06There's a lot of excitement about the new technologies that are getting developed, geothermal, battery technology,
02:12all around the world, from China to Europe to the United States, right?
02:15There's also a sort of a, if I can say, doomsday scenario out there, to use the Bill Gates word that sort of went viral.
02:23I'm curious, do you ignore the naysayers on this when you're looking at projects and just hope that each individual project makes a difference?
02:32Well, what we try to do is to do two things at the same time.
02:36We think we need to scale up projects, and that's what we've done in Europe.
02:41Last year, for example, we have done 31 billion euros of renewable energy projects.
02:47And we do that because it's good for climate, it's good for trying to get electricity price down,
02:54and it's also good for securing our energy efficiency, energy security.
02:59But at the same time, you need to push for innovation, because you don't know what's going to be successful,
03:05but certainly some of these ideas will.
03:07And that's why we are also very active in supporting projects that have a high innovative content,
03:14like in the batteries, for example, for electric vehicles.
03:18You know, it is a particular environment right now.
03:21It seems to have changed over the last couple of years, and it's not just in the United States, it's elsewhere as well.
03:27So I'm curious, you know, in this particular environment, are you finding it more difficult to mobilize private capital?
03:32What are you doing to mobilize more private capital when perhaps the appetite may not be there?
03:38Let me say that at least what we have is, in Europe, our government behind us.
03:46We have adopted, last month, our new climate strategy.
03:51It's a five-year strategy.
03:53And it has been adopted unanimously by the 27 member states.
03:57And the first objective that we have is to stay the course, because we think we need to show that we care about climate financing.
04:07And the second objective is to try to make it more linked to competitiveness, but also to try to have the simplification,
04:15because it's true when you listen to SMEs that there are a lot of reporting that should be avoided, basically.
04:23And that's what we are trying to do.
04:25Now, we are going to have more means, including for adaptation.
04:29We are doubling our objective on adaptation.
04:32And that will help us also do more with the private sector in terms of blending, in terms of de-risking, do more projects with the private sector.
04:41How much do you look at the regulations of a country before you go in?
04:44I mean, obviously, regulations are quite strict in France and Germany, right?
04:47But what about the sub-Saharan countries that you're looking at and other countries you might be looking at?
04:51Well, we look at projects, and when we have corporates, for example, what we do is trying to see if their strategy is consistent with what we expect in terms of Paris alignment in particular of our projects.
05:05Now, what I would say, though, is what we try to do is part of the issue is to have more capacity building, especially in poor countries, where you need to assess climate risk.
05:18It's not easy.
05:19And to transform climate risk into adaptation plan into projects.
05:25So we have put in place a program that's called greening the financial system that helps central banks, financial institutions in poor countries, especially in Africa, to put in place these kind of programs that will help them respond to your question about how can we make sure that we are all going in the same direction.
05:45And finally, Mr. Payol, I have to ask you about your thoughts on that Bill Gates memo, because it did reverberate around the world.
05:51He seemed to be suggesting that there is a pile of money and some of it now has to come out of climate in order to make sure that children's health and welfare gets taken care of.
06:00Is that true or a false dichotomy?
06:02Well, what I think is that it is true that you need to spend more money on vaccines, on health and on poverty reduction.
06:13And that's what we try to do also as EIB, especially in the vaccines sector.
06:19But at the same time, what is also clear is that the poor countries, especially in Africa, are those who pay the highest price for climate change and its consequences.
06:32And that's why we need to spend also a lot of money on climate change and supporting projects that fight against climate change.
06:40And that's why I think you need to have both.
06:44Do it all.
06:44Mr. Payol, best of luck at COP30 and we hope to get an update after you're finished.
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