At COP28, the next generation felt under-represented
At CCG Thought Corner on Dec. 21, young leaders gather to share their experience at COP28 and their own climate causes.
On Dec. 21, 2023, the Center for China & Globalization (CCG) Thought Corner, co-organized by the Global Young Leaders Dialogue Program (GYLD) and Global Shapers Community Beijing II Hub, explored the accomplishments thus far, especially after COP28, and the unmet challenges in climate change governance, action and resilience.
On Monday, Dec. 25, we published the transcript of the keynote speech by Ma Jun 马军, Founder of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) on his takeways from the recent COP28 in Dubai, UAE. On Tuesday, Dec. 26, we published the transcript of another keynote speech by Andy Yinan Hu 胡亦南, Director of Corporate Communications at Huawei.
Their speeches were followed by a panel discussion moderated by Zoon Ahmed, CCG Research Fellow and John Zhanjie ZHAO, CCG Deputy Director of External Relations and Program Manager of GYLD. The panelists feaamong young leaders committed to climate action and green entrepreneurship in China. The panelists included:
Marie-Claire Graf, Co-Founder of Youth Negotiators Academy & Sustainability Week for Business (Online)
Laurent Arribe, Senior Manager of Global Initiative and Head of Beijing Office at Bay Area Council
Olesia Ermakova, Communications Director of Global Shapers Beijing II Hub and Leader of the Climate Reality Project
Huw Slater, Climate & Energy Specialist and EU-China Project Manager at ClientEarth
ZHU Weiqing, Founder of Shanghai Treasure Carbon New Energy Environment Protection Technology Co., Ltd.
Raymond Aitibasa Atanga, PhD Student, School of Government,University of International Business and Economics, Beijing; Researcher/Lecturer, Climate change
Marie-Claire Graf
Co-Founder of Youth Negotiators Academy & Sustainability Week for Business (Online)
Fantastic. Thank you so much for inviting me to this very exciting conference. And also thank you so much for hosting this because after every COP, there is the beginning of a new COP; it's an ongoing process. I think it's very important to also focus on the process and what we can do in between.
As already mentioned, my name is Marie-Claire Graf. I'm from Switzerland and I'm running the Youth Negotiators Academy.
As the name already says, the Youth Negotiators Academy trains young people from all around the world to be part of these processes enough for decision making because what we observe is that while we have already heard a lot of people there, the ultimate decision-making space is meant for the parties, and the parties are the countries as already mentioned before. And that's why it's so important to also bring in young people, young innovators, from all different ways and walks of life, from all the different sectors into this decision-making processes because then we can actually shape the outcomes of these conferences.
So, what are we doing? we are working with the governments directly. This year we work with over 60 governments, so every fourth government of the world. And they are sending us young people and we train them over the duration of six months so they have a good understanding of what these processes are, what the COP actually is, how you can engage, what are the different negotiating items, but also the skills of how to negotiate: public speaking, doing interventions. So we train them over the duration of six months and then they're going to the COP, and that's where they actually negotiate as part of their governmental delegation, for example, from Indonesia, Peru, Malaysia or whatever, any of the countries.
And what I think is really interesting is that we have seen a steep increase of the participation of young people within the COP space in general, but also particularly in the negotiation space. That is very exciting because we've seen that the negotiations are kind of stuck; we also have seen that very often, we're not achieving what we have meant to achieve also in this year's COP. And that's why it's so vital to ensure that we have more diverse decision makers, that we have more representation, specifically also from the front line communities, from the ones who are right now already suffering from the consequences of the devastating climate crisis. Because then we have not only more ambitious outcomes, but also really outcomes which serve the need of people on the ground. And we have seen this also last year with the adoption of the Loss and Damage Fund, and also this year with the further concrete decision of the Loss and Damage Fund that we are able to actually bring about change if we have decision makers who really understand the needs from on the ground.
So a couple of the key takeaways from COP 28 are that we do need more representation, we do need more young people in decision making structures, more diverse voices which are really well trained because ultimately if you go there and you're not really adequately prepared for this role, it can be really challenging for everyone who has already been at the COP or at any multilateral negotiations. You know how complex and complicated it can be and how overwhelming the whole experience at the COP can be. That's why we prepared them in advance. So, we need more well-trained young people at these conferences. And I think that's also what we achieved.
What else I think is really important is that we have a well-structured engagement also after the conference, kind of in-between. This is something we're working on a very keenly to explore. And how can young people be continuously engaged with their governments to shape, and the national policies to ensure that, for example, innovation on a national level can also really enable the young people on the ground.
I think what was not achieved, what many people have been working for from a role around the world is that we have more ambitious outcome when it comes to for the phasing out of the fossil fuels.
Yes, we have an agreement in the text as part of the global stoc take. Nevertheless, it's not in line with science or at least with the latest reports we have seen. So we need more ambition there. Also when it comes to finances, unfortunately, while we have made increased commitments in regards to finance, we are still far off from what is actually needed when it comes to mitigation, when it comes to adaptation, but also when it comes to loss and damage. But specifically also the access for young people to financing. What we see very often is that young people, there is budget, but young people do not have an access, do not have an avenue to actually get financing, getting grants, getting loans for implementing their ideas. I think one very specific area would be the access for young people to these financing opportunities.
And moreover, I think it's also really important to see how we as a global community can come together and craft way ahead of time our demands, so we can actually lobby them in the lead-up to these conferences. So I'm so excited that we have this event here because the key takeaways inform the lead-up to the next conferences.
As already mentioned, I am particularly involved in the negotiation part of it. Nevertheless, this year, I have been also leading the advocacy efforts. We have been hosting over a hundred side events. We already heard from a couple of other speakers before about the importance of these side events because ultimately what we do is creating a movement of inter-generational leadership because we do believe that we need all the different generations working together to ensure that the voices of all the generations are heard and we can actually work ahead of time. And this goes across all the different sectors and avenues of engagement. This also involves obviously the companies, but of course, also involves the government as well as the NGOs and youth movement, as well as the entrepreneurs. And with this, I'm also looking very much forward to see how further inter-generational leadership can be built and how we can ensure that the voices of all generations across all the sectors are heard and engaged. And with this, I think I will give back over to the room.
Laurent Arribe
Senior Manager of Global Initiative and Head of Beijing Office at Bay Area Council
It's really a pleasure to be speaking on today's panel about the key takeaways of COP28. I'd like to thank Secretary-General Miao from CCG as well as the Global Young Leader Dialogue and of course, the Global Shapers for all the great work that you all do. I apologize for not making it in person unfortunately. While I'm based in Beijing, I found a little bit ill. But I hope that my experiences can add some value to the discussion.
For those of you who aren't familiar, the Bayer Council is a public policy advocacy group established in 1945 to represent the business community of the San Francisco Silicon Valley region. So our members include companies from all sectors from the ones that you can think of when you think of Silicon Valley, so Google, Apple, Meta, but also different industries such as Genentech, Meebo, Bank of America and PG&E. Our offices in China focus on building bridges for the business, the local government, and innovation ecosystems to exchange ideas and solutions between California and parts of China.
And with that context, my role at COP was focused on promoting the responsibilities and the potential of Track-II diplomacy for climate action. This means looking at how local governments and the private sector can contribute to accelerating progress and driving the transition to a sustainable future.
So while the world deservingly applauded the outcomes of COP and especially the Sunnylands Agreement and all of the achievements that Dr. Ma Jun listed earlier today, these meaningful achievements are on their own, only one part of the solution. We also believe that significant gains can be achieved through local government collaboration and multi-level governance at a much quicker pace.
So when the leader of the state of California, Governor Gavin Newsom visited China one month prior to APEC last October, there was an undeniable shift in the tone for US-China relations. And this was more than just a symbolic PR win because he also signed 5 MoUs with partners across China, including Jiangsu Province, Guangdong, the city of Beijing and Shanghai. The fifth MoU, in case you're curious, was with the NDRC. But these MoUs all covered areas from EV infrastructure, offshore wind, green management, energy efficiency, air quality, carbon trading, green shipping, and even climate adaptation and resilience. So, with such a broad range of areas of cooperation, we really see a window of opportunity to take this shift in tone and turn the rhetoric into delivering some results.
To take an example for what we could be done. The state of California has been heavily impacted by climate change. As you all know, wildfires have been a big problem. Over the past five years we've seen record breaking fires that have had over $10 billion in insured losses and over $7 billion in health costs. Meanwhile, China has seen a consistent drop in wildfires since 2000. And part of resilience building could look at what has been done in China that could be applied in California and vice versa. The state of California has joint challenges with the city of Beijing in terms of flood prevention. The Greater Bay Area and the San Francisco Bay Area both are at risk of C level rise. And parts of China, of course, are suffering from drought.
So, four years ago, the Bayer Council established a unique grant mechanism in partnership with the private sector to identify solutions to these problems. And today, we disperse over $2 million annually to fund seed projects that build resilience in local communities all across the state of California. And this is a model we hope to develop in China by working with local partners in China. Whether it's working on sharing our best practices or learning from the advances that are Chinese counterparts have leap-frogged in. This all requires creating channels for exchanging information and knowledge between local governments and local thought leaders to establish the priorities and the road maps.
So promisingly, going back to COP. This year we saw an unprecedented recognition for the role of such Track-II channels. There was the launch of the first Local Climate Action Summit (LCAS) that brought together hundreds of sub-national climate leaders to transform climate finance and fast-track the energy transition. It was accompanied by multiple side events such as the one hosted by the Energy Foundation in the China Pavilion and which I participated in. And all of these represent an important and useful milestone for the role of Track-II diplomacy.
But as I see it, the key will be to establish a regularity in engagement to carry out meaningful progress. Local governments outside of China rarely have dedicated foreign affairs departments and are very often strapped for resources. And so this is where a role for third-party organizations like think-tanks, like CCG, foundations like the Energy Foundation, multilateral development banks (MDBs), and of course the private sector. They can identify projects and carry out the work with consistency in between all of these high-profile meetings and events.
So I don't claim to see local government's international collaboration as a panacea for all of our existing systems issues. There are of course still many challenges for from funding to having to deal with the broader political context. But all of the above approach for solving the generational challenge is that climate change must use these advantages that local governments can bring. And so, by serving as an additional layer of connection that can stabilize the uncertainties of national systems and political cycles, we hope that this is another reason for optimism that we can eventually reach our climate goals in the end.
Olesia Ermakova
Communications Director of Global Shapers Beijing II Hub and Leader of the Climate Reality Project
My name is Olesia and I'm coming from the Global Shapers Beijing II hub. Maybe first I should introduce Global Shapers a little bit because I also know that Marie-Claire Graf is a very active Global Shaper from Zurich Hub. So, Hello Zurich from Beijin!
So Global Shapers is a youth platform under the World Economic Forum and I think most of you are very familiar with this international organization and globally there are more than 500 youth hubs around the world. They are based in probably most of the cities, especially capitals, but also even like second-tier and third-tier cities, especially in China. There are so many different hubs and each hub in every city unites the most active young people and we're trying to work on impactful projects which are crucial for the local community here.
For example, like for our Global Shapers Hub in Beijing, we mostly focus on sustainability-related projects because sustainability and the green development, it's very important for China and Beijing especially, as the capital.
And this year I have been to COP as a part of Global Shapers Community. It was also my first time at COP, although I was invited as a speaker to COP15 in Kunming during the pandemic. I was there speaking about the importance of biodiversity and animal preservation, nature preservation. But this time was my first time, and we had like three other Shapers from the hub joining here. We have Hayk (Geghamyan) and also (Wang) Xinxi with us. And I was so inspired and impressed by the scale of the representation of young people at COP, probably because even only from Global Shapers, we had around 300 people coming to Dubai to participate in this COP because somehow, their work is related to sustainability and green development. And they're working in very different projects, not just like their daily job, but also like for the Global Shapers Community. And I think this number is already very impressive and really great.
But also from my other impressions, probably, although the representation from young people was pretty good, I think under-representation was also a question, a big issue, because who are the Shapers? Who are we? We got good education from good universities, from top universities like in China, in Europe and the U.S. And we're not the most affected by climate change layer of the society, right? And I think at COP this time, there were not that many young people who are affected by the climate change the most.
And I also brought my badge from the Blue Zone. Although it's just a badge, it's like a barrier because some young people can get it and probably pretty easily because you're part of some communities or because of your job. And someone will probably never get it and never be heard, and their problems would never be solved probably if you don't accelerate the change. So I really hope that during all the next COPs or any other international conferences, more and more young people would be represented there and their issues, their questions, their problems and pain would be heard by the global leaders.
And I think by going to such events, we should think that we represent other young people as well. We don't represent just ourselves. These are like my personal feelings from the event.
For the Global Shapers in Beijing, we're also trying to influence the local problems here. For example, we run the project which is called the ReCircular Generation. And under this project, we have several sub-projects all related to green economy and we're trying to combat waste management, trying to reduce the waste in Beijing. We're also trying to educate still students, especially high school students, about climate change and how they can contribute to like to improve the situation personally.
We also have the talks with experts. For example, this week on Monday, we were very packed, like all Shapers’ projects and events in Beijing. We organized a session on sustainable investments. And here we have Hayk who is like the project leader for this event. You'll be also inviting the leaders, senior leaders from whom the young people can learn about their experience and probably also get in expired and try to continue working on impactful projects next. Thank you.
Huw Slater
Climate & Energy Specialist and EU-China Project Manager at ClientEarth
Thanks Zoon. And thanks to CCG for the chance. It's a really great initiative. The more forums to talk about climate change and its impacts, the better we deal with it. Everyone also engages with your networks because growing awareness leads to more action, hopefully, in the end.
I thought I’d just take my few minutes to talk about one success out of COP and one failure, and dig into them a little bit more. Just to give a sense of I guess where the COP process is at, what it means, what it can achieve, and what it cannot achieve because for those that are new to COPs, the sooner that you realize that COPs are not the be-all and end-all climate action, the better. It's the first thing.
Because COPs are a consensus base process, right? So in many cases, it's kind of lowest common denominator. That said, they're extremely important to have because if you can move up that lowest common denominator just a little bit, that means the baseline for action is higher and that those who want to be more ambitious are gonna be more ambitious. So it's a really important process, but if you're looking for it to solve the problem entirely, it's not where it's gonna happen. But many of the people that are gonna solve it will be at COP. So it's a really good process to observe and be involved in.
In terms of one of the successes that came out — there was a lot of attention because it came straight at the start of the COP this year — was the operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund. It was an important piece of progress. It’s something that's been an ambition for many years of countries that are deeply impacted by climate change.
I mean, we've known for a long time that dealing with climate change is gonna cost money. We've had this sort of target of $100 billion a year going from rich countries to poor countries to help with the transition to a low carbon economy. But that doesn't deal with the impacts of climate change, which are inevitable. They're locked in and the poorest countries obviously, are the least well-place to be able to cope with those. And some kind of mechanism whereby the poorest countries most impacted are able to be supported through that process is really important.
Finally, it was operationalized. And that's a really positive thing. I think there's much more that we need to pay attention to around that process and then in the coming couple of years.
One is the headline number, right? How much money is being committed, right? That's important and we need to pay attention to that. But it's not the only thing that supports how we use the money. Like any fund, really. I mean, you can put a whole bunch of money in a pot, but if you don't use it efficiently, then it's going to go to waste, right?
So one, let's look at the amount: it's not enough, right? The amount of money that's in there at the moment is nowhere near enough to help small island states or the poorest developing countries to deal with this climate change. So we gonna need more finance.
But we're also gonna need to think about how we ensure that these funds are used effectively. And the this gets a little bit political because different countries have different views on how finance like this should be managed. Some countries think that okay, we should be using existing channels of institutions that are already set up. They have safeguard mechanisms; they have standards they apply across all of their sort of lending or granting portfolios. And that ensures there's some kind of mechanism to make sure that things are used efficiently.
And other countries are saying, well, hang on, we don't have a fair say in how those mechanisms are set up. So that's not always fit for purpose for us, right? If we don't have a seat at the table of how those mechanisms are used, then that's not really fair for us.
So, we need to find a middle ground because I think, certainly the realistic take is that you can't expect all countries agree to, for example, all this finance to go through, say, the World Bank or the other existing channels like the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility. These existing mechanisms are often either biased in the way that who's on sort of managing these funds or they're just overly bureaucratic and it takes way too long to get finance out the door.
So new mechanisms are to be expected, but we also wanna make sure that those mechanisms have their own standards, which are up to or as close as possible to global standards. That means that there's not sort of hoarding of finance by people with political power that's being sort of used in ways that's actually not going to the people that need it.
So that's I think what we need to keep an eye on over the next couple of years. And as this sort of mechanism matures, that we keep an eye on how those standards develop is gonna be really important. So that's one of the successes.
I also wanted to point to one of the things that didn't go so well and it perhaps didn't get quite as much attention because so much was of the attention was on the global stocktake and the Loss and Damage Fund. But there was a parallel negotiation going on in relation to international carbon markets and it relates to what's known as Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. It's a mechanism that was put into the Paris Agreement which was intended to facilitate financial flows again from places that could afford it to places that couldn't afford it, to achieve climate solutions.
And every year we've gone to COP, it's almost been like: well, we can almost agree how this is gonna work and hasn't quite worked out. And this year it really fell in a heat. It was a complete disaster, actually. And the differences at COP were not just between sort of rich and poor countries but actually between Europe and the U.S. and my country, Australia, which are in one block, and Europe in the other block, and these countries are at complete loggerheads about how this should work.
Now, you can have a broader discussion about the role of markets in climates action, but the reality is that we already have international carbon markets. There's voluntary markets which are large and growing. Article 6 essentially is, was, still is, if we do it right, an opportunity to kind of codify the set standards for best practice on how to do international carbon markets, but also to ensure that all these credits that are being bought and sold are sort of additive to the existing action and not taking away from action that would otherwise not have happened.
And that was a bit chastening, I think, because there's been a lot of hope put on. For example, we all know about decarbonizing the energy system. The roadmap is pretty straightforward now. Countries have a path to a zero-carbon energy system. But for example, for land-based reductions and sequestration through forest preservation or mangrove preservation, all of that, in many parts of the world, the reality is that the economic incentive for corporate entities in large parts of world is to extract resource. And there's an opportunity put a value on those natural resources to incentivize preservation, restoration.
But that only works if you make sure that you have good standards. And we've seen in the last couple of years the international market has had a number of controversies which really hit corporate commitment. So corporates that are making voluntary commitments are starting to pull back on some of those commitments because of integrity issues. I think if we're going to have a voluntary carbon market or an international carbon trading under that framework, we really need to get serious about standards. And that's something that's going to be again and another focus of next year's COP. With limited time, I'll just leave it there.
ZHU Weiqing, Founder
Shanghai Treasure Carbon New Energy Environment Protection Technology Co., Ltd.
Good evening. I'm Susan. I'm the founder of Shanghai Treasure Carbon. I'm also a member of CCG, and I know General-Secretary Miao and President Wang for almost ten years. And I'm very happy to have this conversation here.
Let me introduce my company first because most people maybe the don't know my company. My company is called Treasure Carbon was established in 2010. For the past 17 years, we're focusing on China and international carbon market.
In China, we have the project called CCER, China Certified Emission Reductions. This kind of credits are generated from the low carbon projects like artificial forest, renewable projects. And for the past several years, we have helped hundreds of projects to generate credits. But in 2017, we know the CCER project was stopped. But this year, the end of this month, the CCER will reopen. We're very looking forward to it.
And we also help the big emitters like the Big Five and some medical companies to do some consulting like designing the structure for them and providing the big data platform to them. For example, Conch, the biggest cement company in China, uses our big data platform for their 107 cement factories.
We also cooperate with a lot of different financial institutions. We issued China's first carbon fund in 2014. For now, we have issued more than 15 different kinds of financial products. And our return is quite high. To be honest, these two years, our return is more than 45% per year. So we will continue to cooperate with different kind of financial institutions.
We also help the big emitters because they have a lot of allowances. To be honest, this kind of allowance is also carbon financial assets. So we help them to do some carbon management. For example, every year they need to file compliance and we will help them to file compliance and do some carbon trading.
Okay, back to the question. Yes, I have been to the COP for several times except the COVID period because it's the three years when we cannot go abroad. I can feel the very strong change. For example, I feel very hot. This is not about the temperature in Dubai. But also I feel a lot of people now paying a lot of interest on climate change. Even in the COP, we see hundreds of kids there. You can see the citizens’ awareness of climate has been improved a lot.
And another change I can feel very strongly is, in the past several COPs in the China corner, there are not a lot of people. At that time, the China's carbon markets had just started in the pilot period and the scale was very small. And people always came there and asked us, “you said you have the carbon market, you said you will use the market mechanism to do some energy transformation. But we can see the liquidity is very low. And no one knows this kind of market and the price is very low.” So at that time, I felt no one cared about that. Most of the people were talking about how we could reach the emissions reduction target.
But this year, I can feel it getting into the action and the roadmap. And because in 2021, the China's national carbon market was started and has been running for two periods of compliance, this time, a lot of people were coming over to our Chinese corner and ask a lot about what will happen in China's national carbon market.
I feel they're really smart, because China is the biggest carbon market in the world. We have a lot of opportunities. For example, we have eight industries which have very high emissions. They only have two options. One option is to do some energy efficiency projects. But in China, if you want to do this kind of projects, the cost is very high, almost around 300 RMB per tonne. But now you can see the price in China today: almost 80 RMB. The gap is very huge. So they are very smart.
One of the biggest carbon trading companies who is from the EU, the scale of trading for this industry almost 100 billion per year — it's huge. They talked with us and they said, “now we can see the opportunity in China. The price is very low. How can we trade in China? How can we buy this kind of credits? How can we cooperate, for example, in some foreign currency projects?” they also said, because the big emitters need to do some energy saving projects, and that means they can give us some high technologies and some new technologies to help the emitters lower their emission.
I think they're very smart and they can feel their opportunities in China. This is the difference.
And another thing is about Article 6. To be honest, I have a little bit disappointed because I feel maybe this year, we can have some details but as we all know, it's postponed. It's all about how to make warranted carbon assets because when you buy this kind of assets and you offset them, you are not just green washing, right?
So, we're very looking forward to next year and to higher standards. Also, I think this is the trend. We need these high standards to do the real green things. What I'm looking forward to is maybe an international carbon market, where we can have high standard and the Article 6 can be continued.
And personally, I think the opportunity is in the developing countries, not only China but also other Belt and Road countries. Because if these countries really launch their high-quality low carbon projects, this kind of assets will be very popular. And I believe most of the developed countries want to involve in this kind of projects for trading carbon as well.
And we're very open. if you're interested in China’s carbon market, we're open to cooperation with you. If you want Chinese companies to go to the developing countries, we're also very happy to go into this kind of countries. And we also will cooperate with CCG to do some researches on low-carbon projects in developing countries as well.
Raymond Aitibasa Atanga
PhD Student, School of Government,University of International Business and Economics, Beijing; Researcher/Lecturer, Climate change
Thank you very much. And I must say that I'm so happy to be here to talk about the COP28. I think a week before it started, I had an opportunity somewhere to discuss my hopes and aspirations for COP28. And here I am, lucky again to be here this evening to evaluate COP28. So I might say that I'm so happy as my colleagues have indicated there are positives achievements and also failures from COP28. And I think we can do better next time.
I'm particularly intrigued about the commitment to the $100 billion Loss and Damage Fund. I think that, as my colleague indicated here, we need money to adapt to climate change. We need money for mitigation. For poorer countries like my country, Ghana, and the entire Africa, we contribute less to the climate change phenomena than we're experiencing now — about 2.5% of global emissions — and yet the impacts are really very heavy on us.
Livelihoods are being lost. The entire West African coast between 2005 and 2021 lost 37% of the coastal line. Many fishermen have lost their livelihoods. Farmers are losing their livelihoods. No wonder we have so many young people trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe for a better life because their jobs are not there. You can’t do farming, you can’t do fishing and the industries are not there. So, we need money to adapt.
My disappointment is that COP 27, not much commitment has been seen to the 100 billion Loss and Damage Fund. I think so far, the United State gave less than even 3 billion out of it and meanwhile, it is the one of the biggest emitters. So I think that developed countries can do a lot better. And outside the100 billion, China can also contribute to it.
So far, I think, China is also a developing country and it needs to also adapt, but it has this South-South Cooperation Climate Fund and has committed over $3.1 billion to it. But so far, less than 10% of that money has gone out for adaptation, for the purpose that it was set up for.
So I think that we all we need commitment from across board, from developed and developing countries. China can contribute more; the developed countries can also do so.
So far, I've seen that from the $100 billion, much of the European countries particularly Germany, Italy, and France, have committed a lot. We still need to get the United States to do more because I've seen that pledge about $17 billion. I think that's far less from somebody who contributes so much to the problem that we're facing now.
Apart from that, we also need to reform the global financial system. I think the Bridgetown Initiative was discussed, but no concrete conclusions on that because developed countries borrow at a rate from 1 to 4%, and developing countries at 14 or more. So, there's no fairness in financing arrangements across the whole world. And I think poorer countries get more loans at a relatively cheaper rate, they can overcome that situation and also be able to contribute to developing their own economies.
And then also, I must talk about the transfer of technology. Money should go with the transfer of technology. We need technology, too, if you understand the climate change phenomena and how to adapt to and mitigate it.
And then, the last thing. One of my colleagues talked about how the fund can be utilized to ensure that the right things are done in terms of mitigation and adaptation. I would advocate for a regional approach to some of the mitigation efforts because climate change impacts are regional; they're not specific to a particular country or a society. So if you go for a region, for instance, in Africa, we have the potential to generate enough green energy from solar, hydro, and wind to power the entire Africa. Yet we don't have the resources to do it.
So rather than going country by country, especially in most parts of Africa, where the countries are just small, if we go for a regional approach to adaptation, I think that we can draw synergistic efforts to be able to overcome the current challenges that we face. Thank you so much.
And that's the end of the CCG Thought Corner: Key Takeaways from COP28 and the Way Forward. Thank you for following CCG events and don't forget to check out the previous two parts: