Sustainable and Climate finance in the Mediterranean: UfM Secretary General meets with Financial Centers for Sustainability (FC4S)
15 April 2021, Barcelona. The UfM Secretary General, Nasser Kamel, held an online meeting with Financial Centres for Sustainability (FC4S), a collective of financial centres working to accelerate the expansion of sustainable finance by enabling financial centres to exchange experience, drive convergence, and act on shared priorities, with the aim of contributing to the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. Barcelona Centre Financer Europeu and Casablanca Finance City, both members of FC4S participated at the meeting, which was facilitated by Fundación Tanja.
They discussed potential future cooperation between the UfM and FC4S with the aim of helping to create green financial centres in the region and to build the capacities of financial institutions in member states in that regard, in line with the Paris Agreement and in view of the upcoming UfM Ministerial Conference on Environment and Climate Action.
The Secretary General stressed the importance of advancing a green and sustainable agenda in the Mediterranean. He also noted that the UfM gives special attention to research on financing climate action across the region, and that the UfM has conducted several studies related to Climate Finance. These studies have shown that the countries of the South and East of the Mediterranean are quite efficient: they attract about 13% of international public funding for countries that comprise 4.1% of the world’s population and 2.6% of global GDP, which is rather positive. However, given the climate urgency underlined by the MAR1 report of MedECC, much more is needed, notably for Adaptation and Energy Transition needs.
The participants agreed to meet again at a technical level to propose concrete areas of collaboration.
