Istanbul Climate Finance Summit held under Türkiye's COP31 presidency

The Istanbul Climate Finance Summit took place in Istanbul within Türkiye's COP31 presidency, Report informs, citing the press service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

Azerbaijan was represented at the event, as members of the Advisory Board of Türkiye's COP31 presidency, by the President's Representative for Climate Issues Mukhtar Babayev and Deputy Foreign Minister Yalchin Rafiyev.

As part of the event, panel discussions dedicated to climate finance, high-level sessions, roundtable meetings, and various thematic discussions were held.

At the Summit, which was attended by representatives of government structures, multilateral development banks, international financial institutions, investors, and the private sector, issues of climate finance, the development of climate-resilient cities, preparations for COP31, and other pressing topics were discussed.

Rafiyev participated and acted as a moderator in roundtable discussions on the theme "Climate Finance for Climate-Resilient Cities."

The deputy minister reported that an agreement was reached at COP29 on the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG), also known as the Baku Finance Goal, and for the first time, a long-term financing target was defined, providing for the increase of support to developing countries to $1.3 trillion by 2035.

Emphasizing that the theme of resilient cities was defined as one of the main directions in the COP29 Action Agenda, Rafiyev noted that within this framework, the Baku Continuity Coalition and the Multisectoral Actions Pathways (MAP) for Resilient and Healthy Cities initiatives were put forward.

Touching upon the 13th World Urban Forum (WUF13), held in May of this year in Baku, Rafiyev emphasized that the Forum yielded important results in terms of developing the urban climate resilience agenda. He noted the significance of the Baku Climate Action Week, which will take place in Azerbaijan next week, in terms of ensuring the continuity of the achieved results.

Babayev and Rafiyev also spoke at a high-level session entitled "Climate Implementation Bridge: A High-Level Roadmap for Implementation and Financing," held under the chairmanship of Turkish Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Murat Kurum.

The Azerbaijani delegates focused attention on the contribution of the historic results of COP29 to global discussions on the topic of climate finance.