Invest Durban is thrilled to announce their participation as one of the 14 signatories at the World Economic Forum FDI Coalition, representing a collective of over 300 million citizens. Together, they’re championing the establishment of a Climate FDI Coalition, a crucial initiative endorsed by leaders from 14 investment agencies and organisations.
‘Climate FDI’ refers to foreign direct investment (FDI) that contributes to countries’ climate-aligned growth objectives. The world needs to grow climate smart FDI. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Synthesis Report on climate change from March 2023 shows that humanity is still not on track to limit temperature increase to 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels.
This groundbreaking proposal, unveiled at the #WEF24 Annual Meeting, seeks to address the climate finance gap by fostering collaboration among investment promotion agencies. Capital availability is paramount in tackling current environmental challenges, and investment authorities are poised to play a pivotal role in bridging this gap.
Through the Coalition, Invest Durban aims to share best practices, offer mutual support, and foster collaboration at a regional level. Together with investors, they can explore and facilitate green investment opportunities, contributing to climate-aligned growth and development.
Further to this goal, public-private collaboration will be an integral part of this process. Drawing on the expertise of the private sector will enable Invest Durban to improve regulatory and policy frameworks and deliver more attractive, viable and inclusive climate FDI projects. Beyond that, buy-in from key public and private actors, and adopting a joined up approach to FDI facilitation, will enhance the effectiveness of these efforts.
According to the World Economic Forum’s recently published Guidebook on Facilitating Climate FDI the investment projects required are those that are:
■ Zero or low carbon in nature
■ Aim to reduce the carbon footprint of a firm
■ Support the reduction of greenhouse gases (ghg) through more efficient energy technologies
■ Are designed to improve the resilience of infrastructure to adapt to the effects of climate change.
Signatories are also encouraged to exchange notes with each other on how best to track and monitor climate FDI, since doing so can help countries align their incentives and flanking strategies to make the most of new investments.
Russell Curtis, CE of Invest Durban concludes, “Durban has a number of multibillion-rand, carbon reducing, carbon smart FDI projects in hand already. We look forward to this expanded partnership with the WEF, plus local business leadership, to get these projects over the line.”
