IDB organizes meeting at COP17 to discuss planning and financing to face climate change challenges

News Releases Dec 7, 2011DURBAN, South Africa – Representatives from 13 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean—Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, Jamaica and Barbados—participated in a working breakfast organized by the Inter-American Development Bank on “Planning and Financing of National Action Plans for Climate Change” at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The objective of the event was to promote a dialogue among countries in the region on three key issues related to climate change: access to international funds, creation of national funds, and mechanisms to encourage low-carbon economic growth.

Representatives included ministers, vice-ministers, presidential advisers, country delegation chiefs and the chief of the IDB’s Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Unit, Walter Vergara. Also in attendance were representatives of institutions such as Mexico’s National Ecology Institute (INE), the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), and the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC).

The IDB is committed to promoting low-carbon economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean. To that end, it is providing technical and financial support for studies and for action programs related to reducing countries’ vulnerability to the effects of climate change, increasing their ability to adapt to the realities of climate change, and helping them reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As part of the recent agreement among its shareholders to increase the Bank’s capital, it was agreed that 25 percent of the institution’s lending by 2015 would be designated for projects related to climate change, renewable energy and environmental sustainability.n