Guest Q&A|Dino: Green Tech Key to Phasing Out Fossil Fuels

摘要：In the face of the climate crisis, closing the climate finance gap is a huge challengefacing developing countries. What challenges

In the face of the climate crisis, closing the climate finance gap is a huge challengefacing developing countries. What challenges does the international community face in implementing the new collective finance goals set at COP29 and improving the climate financesystem? How should Asian countries respond to these challenges?

Dino OTRANTO

Chief Executive Officer,Fortescue Metals

The international community must massively arrest global warming by phasing out fossil fuels – and the only way to phase out fossil fuels is to drive the uptake of green technologies and fuels. Fortescue is leading the charge on this – and we will eliminate fossil fuels from our operations by 2030. We will also do this profitably. Our US$6.2 billion investment to decarbonise our operations comes with an eight-year payback period and saves us over US$500 million annually in fuel costs. The world needs to stop looking at the climate crisis as a cost. It is a huge economic opportunity and investments in green fuels and green technologies will quickly pay off. The new collective quantified goal (NCQG) of $300 billion a year by 2035 undoubtedly falls short of being able to drive what is required to slow global warming and is also clearly not matched to the size of the economic opportunity that awaits. COP29 demanded decisive action and with a timeline that reflected the catastrophic climate circumstances we all face. On these measures alone, it failed to deliver.

Many Asian countries stand to gain in the post fossil fuel economy as they generate new green products and industries from their own domestic green energy as part of a larger, global green trade – and they are already moving much faster than some other countries elsewhere. The co-benefits are huge and include bluer skies, greener landscapes and a bounce back in biodiversity, nature and our standard of living.

Climate finance reforms need to focus on making projects possible in the developing world. That means real efforts at de-risking those projects and strong backing for regional offtake. Key to these reforms must be inserting emissions reduction as an objective of multilateral institutions. Right now, they are not obliged to consider climate positive outcomes in their lending. This must change to drive greater finance flows.