A New Coalition to Increase Climate Finance and Resilience | Mike Bloomberg

Well, Shemara, thank you. Thank you for your leadership and partnership on climate change. In addition to running one of the great banks in the world, she has time to make a difference for the entire world. And on behalf of all of your friends, thank you for everything you do. Let me also thank everyone here for helping to lead the Glasgow Financial Alliance for net zero, and particularly our chairs in Asia and the Pacific, Africa, and Latin America, Ravi Menon, Mahmoud Mohi, El-Dian, and hope I don't mangle the last name, Patricia Espinoza. It's particularly important I pronounce her name right because she works at Bloomberg. Seriously, their work couldn't be more important, and we can't avoid the worst harms of climate change without an enormous amount of new investment. And that's especially true in developing nations that have contributed the least to the crisis, but now face some of the bloodiest risks. These countries also have some of the most potential to expand clean energy, but are seeing the least investment. And so we've just got to do something about that. The good news is that more and more of the world's largest financial firms are creating plans to reach net zero emissions across their portfolios, but we do need financial firms of all sizes in every part of the world to make those plans, including the domestic banks that provide the bulk of financing for clean energy projects in developing countries. So here at COP, we're launching a major new effort to help ensure that we have the resources to do exactly that. It is called the Global Capacity Building Coalition, G-C-B-C, so you can remember it that way. It does bring together an unprecedented group of global partners that include the United Nations, financial firms, regulators, and standard-setting organizations, and multinational leaders who are critical to the ability of the global south to confront climate change, including the World Bank and the IMF. And these groups, we think, will work together to provide assistance and resources to help financial institutions in developing countries, which will help them create net zero investment plans that also continue to drive growth, create jobs, and improve public health. And that's going to do a lot to speed up our progress. So let me once again thank the leadership group at GFANS for all your important work and all the partners involved in this new coalition. And it is now my pleasure to turn it over to one of the founders of the Global Capacity Building Coalition and the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, Elon Goldfein. Elon, all yours.