AIIB at COP31

Meeting the ambition set at Baku and Belém, to scale climate finance for developing countries to at least USD 1.3 trillion a year by 2035 will take more than larger project portfolios. It depends on the policies, institutions and markets that make climate investment bankable and keep it flowing: cost-reflective pricing, regulatory certainty, carbon-market governance, sound public finance and pipelines of investable projects.

Governments and multilateral development banks (MDBs) increasingly use policy-based finance to support these reforms. That raises practical questions. Which reforms unlock investment, how quickly and how durably? And how can we tell a reform adopted from an outcome achieved?

This panel brings together senior leaders from the United Nations, MDBs and independent evaluation, with deep experience on the government side of reform. Drawing on evidence from independent evaluation, including AIIB’s evaluation of its Climate-Focused Policy-Based Financing (CPBF) instrument, it will examine what makes climate-related reforms effective and lasting, and how evidence can sharpen accountability for climate results.

Scaling up climate investment in emerging markets requires more than increasing the supply of capital. It also requires financial intermediaries and project aggregators, market structures, and regulatory incentives that help channel capital repeatedly and at scale into climate-aligned infrastructure.

Climate investment opportunities remain fragmented across borrowers, sectors, and asset types. Small transaction sizes, limited sponsor track records, risk perceptions, stringent financing terms, and shallow capital markets can constrain investment even where underlying demand is strong. Successful individual transactions can demonstrate commercial potential, but they do not automatically create the conditions for sustained market growth.

Financial intermediaries can play complementary roles in addressing these constraints. Commercial banks can originate and expand climate finance across a broad client base and integrate it into mainstream lending. Public and development banks can help address market gaps through longer-term financing, risk-sharing instruments, and support for new market segments. Funds and asset managers can aggregate and diversify exposures, create investable portfolios, and connect climate opportunities with larger pools of institutional capital.

Public policy and government instruments are also critical enablers of financial intermediation. Barriers to climate investment in emerging markets often stem from market failures that private investors alone cannot resolve. Well-designed public policies and incentives can de-risk investment and catalyze private capital at scale through financial intermediaries.

Partnering with financial intermediaries and governments, multilateral development banks (MDBs) can reinforce these channels by providing long-term and anchor capital, sharing risk, upholding market standards, and helping establish the track record and investor confidence needed to mobilize additional capital into climate-positive investments.

Drawing on practical experience from MDB partnerships with commercial and public financial institutions, the session will examine what is needed to move from successful transactions toward deeper, more resilient, and scalable markets for climate finance.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) proposes an action-oriented discussion on how policy and institutional reform, project preparation, and financing can be better sequenced and connected to create an integrated implementation pathway. The session will also explore where and how multilateral development banks (MDBs) can provide targeted technical assistance and financing along this pathway.

For AIIB, this means connecting upstream policy and technical support, with project preparation and downstream public and private financing to support a coherent project implementation process. Drawing on AIIB's investment experience, the session will examine where and why the implementation chain breaks, how a more systematic and coordinated approach can address these gaps, and how AIIB’s support can help translate policy commitments into a sustained pipeline of investment-ready, climate-resilient infrastructure projects.

The session seeks to broaden the climate finance conversation from the scale of financing required to the implementation architecture needed to translate climate priorities and available capital into investable infrastructure projects.

Cities need mobility systems that do more than move passengers and freight. They must connect people to jobs and services, respond to changing demand, reduce emissions, use public assets efficiently and remain financially sustainable.

Decarbonizing urban mobility requires an integrated approach that brings together urban development, transport, energy and digital planning, alongside measures related to land use, public service delivery and long-term financing. The transport-energy nexus is also important. As transport becomes increasingly electrified, cities must address growing demands on electricity networks, charging infrastructure and load management. At the same time, smart charging, energy storage and vehicle-to-grid systems can help integrate renewable energy into the power supply.

The financing challenge goes beyond funding vehicles. Electric public transport requires upfront investment in buses, batteries, charging networks, depots and digital management systems, together with credible arrangements for maintenance, technology risk management and the eventual replacement of assets.

AIIB’s upcoming publication, Smart Green Mobility: Building Clean, Connected and Sustainable Systems, examines how these objectives can be brought together through a whole-of-system approach.

Please join us for an engaging panel discussion on how cities can accelerate the transition towards greener, smarter and more sustainable mobility systems.