Caribbean leaders gathered at the One Planet Summit this week announced a new coalition of global organizations to drive investment towards climate resilient infrastructure. The Caribbean Climate-Smart Coalition aims to find a way to break through the systemic obstacles that stop finance flowing to climate-smart investments. Participating organizations include the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank, and businesses and supporters from the international community. The aim of the coalition is to help unleash the means to catalyze an $8 billion investment plan to bring greater energy and infrastructure resilience to the Caribbean.
The Coalition has four priority areas: Scale renewable energy as rapidly as possible to lower impact of imported fossil fuels and vulnerability of centralised distribution systems. Build low-carbon and resilient infrastructure to withstand future extreme weather events. Create innovative financing models such as debt-for-resilience swap initiative in exchange for demonstrated progress on policy reforms and investments that will enhance resilience. Build platforms to facilitate the large public and private investments required.
Supported by funding and resources from the Inter-American Development Bank Group, the World Bank Group and the Caribbean Development Bank, a Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator with an estimated budget of $6 -10m for a three-year period is being established to catalyse billions of further public and private resources.
