Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change. Heat, droughts and water shortages hamper economic development and the way out of poverty for many people. As one of Austria's largest providers of international climate finance, OeEB supports developing and emerging countries in the fight against climate change.
Ambitious financing objectives
As part of the UN Climate Conference in Paris in 2015 (COP 21), Austria pledged to provide at least half a billion euros in international climate finance in the period 2015-2020. This commitment is linked to the collective goal of all industrialised nations to mobilise USD 100 billion per year by 2020 for climate financing. As of 2020, the United Nations will discuss a new, more ambitious financing objective for the period after 2025.
We consider it one of our comparative strengths that we use our instruments in a particularly efficient and effective way to contribute to this climate finance objective and want to remain one of the largest international climate financiers in Austria. Therefore, OeEB has set itself the goal of investing at least an average of 40% of its new business in climate-related projects in the years 2019-2023.
The focus of our commitment is in the area of emission reduction, which we achieve, for example, by financing projects in the field of renewable energy.
Financing climate-friendly growth
We are aware of possible trade-offs between, on the one hand, the objective of contributing to economic growth and thus job creation in developing countries and, on the other hand, the objective of acting to combat climate change. OeEB therefore uses targeted financing in the field of renewable energy in order to meet the energy demand in developing countries, which is inevitably increasing due to population and economic growth, in the most climate-friendly way possible.
In contrast to official development assistance (ODA), private investment mobilised by public financing is also eligible in the area of climate finance. Here we see great potential to use our instruments specifically to mobilise private funds.
According to Article 2.1.c of the Paris Agreement, all national and international financial flows must be consistent with the objective of limiting global warming to max. 1.5 to 2 degrees in the future and thus contribute to low-carbon development. OeEB is committed to this mainstreaming of climate protection and will also endeavor to support technologies which emit as little CO2 as possible as part of projects which do not explicitly target climate protection.
