Participation of the PABSEC International Secretariat, in the 2023 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Forum on Green Finance and Investment (GFI), 2-3 October 2023

Mr. Daniel DULCA, PABSEC Deputy Secretary General, attended the online 10th Edition of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Forum on Green Finance and Investment (GFI), on 2-3 October 2023, which was held as a hybrid event, at the OECD headquarters and virtually, with on-line streaming.

This Forum on Green Finance and Investment (GFI) is an annual OECD flagship event that brings together participants from all over the world and offers a unique opportunity to discuss key policy priorities and untapped opportunities for international collaboration, in order to speed up the critical shift of finance towards climate and environmental goals and foster transformative investments in the real economy.

The 10th Edition of the Forum on GFI was focused on “Accelerating policy action to close the credibility gap”.

Opening remarks were made by: Mr. Mathias Cormann, Secretary-General of the OECD; Mr. Shigeru Ariizumi, Vice-Minister for International Affairs, Financial Services Agency, Japan (virtual) and Ms. Sidonie Commarmond-Meynial, Member, Pour un réveil écologique.

Key discussion topics included: Policy action to ensure the credibility and integrity of net-zero targets; Challenges and solutions to enable a shift of the financial system towards climate and environmental goals; Resetting incentives to scale up the mobilisation of private finance towards global climate, environmental, and biodiversity goals; Measures and good practices to ensure that the climate transition is just and people-centred.

High-level plenaries and parallel sessions during the Forum, provided opportunities to exchange knowledge and foster action-oriented discussions on the latest developments, challenges and potential solutions for green finance and investment, to genuinely deliver better environmental outcomes.

This year's Forum underlined that obstacles to mobilizing environmentally sustainable finance and investment still remain, also pointing out that greenwashing has become a major risk, while finance is still persistently misallocated towards high-emitting and environmentally harmful activities. In the nascent space of transition finance, there is an emerging risk of greenwashing and a need for development and disclosure of credible transition plans, to ensure environmental integrity.

The participants concluded that important solutions have emerged, ambitious investment mobilization initiatives are getting established, so that to be implemented in the future, by corporates, financial institutions and governments.