Slowing global investment despite higher CO2 level

 

 

"For policymakers already under pressure to demonstrate value for money, there is renewed urgency to deliver precious public resources in ways that level the carbon playing field and create incentives for private investors to significantly accelerate their investment in low-carbon and climate-resilient growth options.

The challenge is that private investors, who can and should provide the lion’s share of global climate finance for good reason — as asset owners (project developers) and end users (households, corporate manufacturers) of renewable technologies — only invest their money when the returns on offer outweigh the costs," CPI said in the Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2013 released on October 22.

Landscape 2013 concentrates on new money coming into the system that is targeting climate change. In 2012, global investment hit $364 billion. 

In May 2013, the world crossed a symbolic threshold when observed concentrations of the main atmosphere-warming greenhouse gas, CO2, exceeded 400 parts per million for the first time, indicating that climate-resilient investment goals is a more urgent task than ever.

CPI is a team of analysts and advisors that works to improve the most important energy and land use policies around the world, with a particular focus on finance. 

It noted that on one hand, there is some cause for optimism: Although private investment has declined in general terms, technology costs for large-scale renewable energy have fallen further, perhaps as economies of scale start to take hold. On the other hand, climate related investments have fallen well short of even the most conservative needs estimates for successive years, making the requirement of ‘catch up’ very real.