- Dr. James Mwangi, Patrick, welcome.
Patrick, to you first,
what's the role of financial institutions?
- There are basically three roles
of financial institutions
in the fight against climate change.
The first one is climate finance.
It's to fund projects like green energy projects,
food projects, adaptation projects that we need
in the fight against climate change.
The second one is financial inclusions.
How do we make sure the most vulnerable populations
have access to banking services and can invest,
for example, smallholder farmers.
And then as anyone else, banks, financial institutions,
need to show the examples,
need to decarbonize their own value chain,
and they need to show the examples
with their suppliers and their customers.
And this is something on which Equity Bank
has been a leader.
- Dr. James Mwangi, tell me what is Equity Group doing
to achieve its sustainability goals?
What are your future strategies?
- Thank you very much.
We have looked at sustainability
and our role in three perspectives.
The first one is option one,
where we really look at decarbonizing our entire systems.
And there we have done very well.
Kenya, fortunately, for instance,
has 93% green energy from the grid.
And then we have gone to remove
our things like generators.
The biggest challenge is not even option two,
where we are now looking at
our entire value chain, our suppliers,
there we can put conditions.
It's what my colleague said about the customer base.
How do we ensure the entire ecosystem
is empowered to play the active role?
And as he said, three financing options.
The first one is really to finance projects
that are greening the world.
The second one is to help those in the frontline
to mitigate and adapt.
So they need financing.
And the last one is to ensure financial inclusion.
Nobody is left behind as we take this move.
- Dr. James Mwangi, what role does the international community
have to play in supporting an African-led climate action?
- Climate has no boundaries.
We are in this together.
It's either we perish together or we swim together.
And consequently, a continent like Africa,
that is disadvantaged in many aspects
because of the impact climate has had in it
and particularly the small-scale farmers,
international community needs to play a financing,
an operating, and catalytic role
to ensure Africa catches up
and plays its rightful role.
The conservation and preservation,
for instance, of the Congo Basin Forest,
is very critical to ensure we maintain the carbon sinks
and that Africa continues
to develop without emissions.
- Patrick, what's your perspective?
- Well, the international community promised
14 years ago in Copenhagen
to deliver a hundred billion dollars every year
of capital flow into the Global South,
I would say in, emerging markets,
to fight against climate change,
both mitigation and adaptation.
Well, this has not happened.
So I think the first thing,
and this is maybe for the first year
that we will get close to the a hundred million, billion.
So I think the first thing
the international community should do
is just to live its promises
and to deliver on this a hundred billion promise.
And actually we will need to increase
through loss and damage, through other funds,
because the reality of climate change
is that the most impacted areas
tends to be localized in the South.
- Patrick, Dr. James Mwangi, thank you so much.