At COP26, Pedro Sánchez announces that Spain will increase climate finance by 50% to 1.35 billion euros a year from 2025 onwards

Glasgow (United Kingdom)

The Conference is marked by the impact of the pandemic and the uneven access of countries to COVID-19 vaccines.

President Sánchez spoke first during the segment dedicated to presentations by national leaders, as a gesture of recognition of Spain's leadership on climate change, reflected in the approval of a Climate Change and Energy Transition Law; the decision to allocate almost 30 billion euros from the Recovery Plan to ecological transition; and Spain's organisation of COP25 in Madrid, following Chile's resignation, at a very difficult time in the fight against climate alarm.

Pedro Sánchez recalled that, since the last conference held in the Spanish capital in 2019, "the certainty of the catastrophic risks" of the climate emergency is growing.

Greater ambition

In light of this scientific evidence, the President of the Government of Spain has called for "greater ambition" in the goals of the fight against climate change and "backing" these goals with economic resources, so that society perceives the ecological transition "not as a threat, but as a great engine of inclusive economic growth".

The fulfilment of the goal of financing the poorest countries with 100 billion dollars per year so that they too can join the energy transition is one of the "litmus tests of COP26" in terms of "restoring trust between the countries of the North and the South. Spain will do its part", assured the President of the Government of Spain.

In line with this goal, Sánchez has announced that Spain will increase climate finance in order to reach 2025 with a 50% increase in the current commitment. "Our aim is to reach 1.35 billion euros per year from 2025" in financial aid to less developed countries, so that they can face a sustainable and just energy transition, said the President.

To this commitment, Spain will also add the donation of 20% of its new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to vulnerable countries: a minimum of 350 million to the IMF's Poverty Reduction Facility and the rest to the new Resilience and Sustainability Fund, once it has been created.

This external action will be reinforced by Spain's already announced contribution of 30 million euros to the United Nations Adaptation Fund in 2022. All of these resources will help the less advanced economies to "invest in the technologies that will lead us to a greener and more sustainable future", the Spanish president stressed.

During his speech, Pedro Sánchez also stressed the need for greater political determination and immediate action to implement a new international order that recognises the role of all agents - governments, citizens, companies and the financial sector - as essential actors for change. That it assumes that "this decade is key" and that it manages to "align short-term ambition with a long-term vision", reducing greenhouse gas emissions and keeping the G20-backed target of 1.5ºC of global average temperature rise within reach.

To this end, Sánchez called for the abandonment of fossil fuels, the protection of biodiversity and the preservation of the oceans and Antarctica, with a commitment to renewable energies, energy efficiency, clean mobility, the conservation and restoration of our ecosystems and urban rehabilitation.

For this reason, the Spanish president stressed that Spain has reduced coal-fired electricity generation by 90% in the last four years, aligning public and private investment with the goal of climate neutrality, and doing so "with dialogue and social cohesion" - essential for Pedro Sánchez - because "the transition must be fair or it will not be".

The President of the Government of Spain has also called for joint and coordinated work, so that COP26 can be a turning point that promotes a real change of course for the planet through urgent, solidarity-based action. An action "that closes inequality gaps and allows the benefits of climate action and model change to be perceived", bringing together all public and private agents in the creation of appropriate frameworks for adaptation policies, particularly in countries that are especially vulnerable to extreme phenomena, as is the case of Spain.

Non official translation