“We need more ambition, we need trillions not billions,” COP28 President Dr. Sultan Al Jaber said at virtual meeting of heads of multilateral development banks (MDBs).

Al Jaber told the MDBs they had already made “good progress” on reform, including an endorsement by shareholders of a new vision for the World Bank: to create a world free of poverty on a liveable planet, but with less than a month until the start of COP28, now was the time to do better.

The COP28 President outlined his main asks for MDBs ahead of COP28, he said: “I have three asks for you, MDBs must work through country platforms, revise climate finance targets for coming years, and lower the risk for the private sector. MDBs must play a key role in laying the foundations for a new framework on climate finance.”

Al Jaber said that shifting MDB financing away from a project-by-project approach and onto country platforms was key to his Presidency’s plans to improve access to climate finance, ensuring it was accessible, affordable and available.

Earlier, the President had launched a charter to mobilise and encourage the private sector to take bolder action on climate and commit to greater credibility and accountability in their net-zero emissions pledges.

The Net-Zero Transition Charter: Accountability mobilization for the private sector launch comes just weeks ahead of the COP28 conference and follows a technical report from the Global Stocktake on 8 September, which showed that the world is off track to keeping the goals of the Paris Agreement alive.

The COP28 Presidency has called for a collaborative approach to reduce emissions by 43 per cent in the next seven years, with all types of capital, whether it be public, private or philanthropic.

The Net-Zero Transition Charter provides a steppingstone to the work currently being carried out by the UNFCCC in the creation of the Recognition Accountability Framework for non-Party Stakeholders, which was first announced at the Bonn Climate Change Conference in June.

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