On the second day of the Second Workshop on Long-term Finance, held in Cape Town, South Africa, participants engaged in a session on enhancing enabling conditions (policies and instruments). They heard a presentation by Amal-Lee Amin, Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G), who provided an overview of: available policy instruments to mobilize climate finance; current barriers to catalyzing investments; and the role of public policy finance in mobilizing scaled-up investment. She emphasized the importance of: engaging stakeholders; setting a clear, long-term and coherent policy; providing price signals to incentivize the deployment of low-carbon investments; creating markets to realize the benefits of green growth; and facilitating cross-ministerial coordination.

Three breakout groups then convened in the morning to address: policies and instruments that have the potential to contribute to mobilizing, scaling up and catalyzing new and additional climate finance over the short, medium and long term; and the potential role of the UNFCCC in fostering these policies and policy instruments.

In the afternoon, participants engaged in a session on enhancing enabling conditions (delivery and access) and heard two presentations. Josué Tanaka, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), described the growth of the EBRD’s activities since the launch of the Sustainable Energy Initiative (SEI) in 2006, highlighting that activities include industrial energy efficiency investments, sustainable energy financing facilities, power sector and municipal infrastructure energy efficiency, and renewable energy project financing.

Mafalda Duarte, African Development Bank, presented on long-term finance in Africa, highlighting a concentrated solar project (CSP) in Morocco. She explained that Morocco’s solar agency will receive concessional financing and grants for the project and a large subsidy would be required to cover incremental costs.

Three breakout groups then convened to: explore design elements of international climate finance architecture that exhibit scalability and replicable features for current and future climate actions/funds; and discuss the potential role that the UNFCCC can play in creating a more conducive enabling environment.

On the third and final day of the Second Workshop on Long-term Finance, in the morning, participants heard reports back to plenary from the facilitators of the nine breakout groups, which were held on Monday and Tuesday, and that focused on sources of climate finance, policies and instruments for creating enabling environments, and enabling environments that enhance delivery of and access to finance. The reports focused on, inter alia: the definition of what can be counted as climate finance; potential sources of finance and key issues that have hampered progress their mobilization; increasing private sector involvement; support for adaptation; and the role of the UNFCCC in unlocking sources.

During the closing session, Co-Chair Georg Børsting (Norway) thanked the Secretariat and participants for their contribution to, and active engagement in, the workshop. He provided an overview of the mandate of the work programme and summarized the outcomes of the first workshop on long-term finance. Co-Chair Zaheer Fakir (South Africa) outlined some of the second workshop’s achievements, highlighting: enhanced collective understanding on mobilizing climate finance; increased institutional knowledge on climate finance issues; valuable knowledge sharing; and the engagement of experts. He stated that the kind of leadership required in the climate finance area is one that is based on “inspiration, not domination,” and on “cooperation not intimidation.” Fakir closed the workshop at 12:50 pm.