The United Arab Emirates, the host of this year’s United Nations climate summit, pledged $4.5 billion (R86bn) to help African nations accelerate clean-energy projects.

Abu Dhabi’s clean-energy producer Masdar, Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, Etihad Credit Insurance, the nation’s export credit agency, and AMEA Power, a Dubai-based renewable-energy company, will provide the funds, the COP28 Presidency said in a statement yesterday.

Africa may need an almost tenfold increase in climate adaptation funding, to $100bn a year, to help it bolster its infrastructure and shield its agriculture from climate change, the Global Center on Adaptation said. While the continent produces only about 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions its nations are among those hardest hit by climate change.

“We need a complete upgrade, in fact a surgical intervention of the global financial architecture that was built for a different era,” COP28 president-designate Sultan Al Jaber, said at the inaugural Africa Climate Summit in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, yesterday. “I am also calling on donors to double adaptation finance by 2025.”

The UAE, home to some of the world’s biggest sovereign funds, has been deploying its oil wealth strategically to support its foreign policy in the region and and beyond. Masdar has been seeking to invest in power firms in places including the US and in offshore wind projects in Asia and Africa.

Al Jaber is chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi National Oil, the world’s 12th-largest producer of oil and gas, and the UAE has been criticised for presiding over COP28 while leading efforts to expand crude production capacity. To allay concerns, the country has announced plans to invest as much as $54bn in renewables over the next seven years.

Masdar also plans to more than double renewable projects to 100 gigawatts by the end of the decade. And Al Jaber is trying to make clean energy deployment a key goal of the COP28 summit.

“We also need early pledges for the loss and damage fund to help vulnerable countries recover from severe climate impacts that they are already experiencing,” Al Jaber said in a speech in Nairobi on Tuesday.

African Development Bank’s Africa50 investment platform will act as a strategic partner to the UAE to help identify initial projects on the continent, according to the statement.

Funding details:

- The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development will provide $1bn of financial assistance.

- The Etihad Credit Insurance will provide $500 million of credit insurance to reduce risk and unlock private capital.

- Masdar is pledging $2bn of equity, and will mobilise an additional $8bn in project finance targeted to deliver 10 gigawatts of clean energy capacity in Africa by 2030.

- AMEA Power will help fund 5 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity in the continent by 2030, mobilising $5bn, with $1bn in equity investments, and $4bn from project finance.

BLOOMBERG