Large investments are needed to confront climate change. Current levels are far below what is required. Bridging this investment gap rests on harnessing both public and private climate finance. Yet, accessing and effectively using these funds presents substantial challenges, especially in developing countries.

Innovative market solutions could help. Markets can be useful because climate change is a global commons problem and different countries have different abilities to reduce emissions. What is missing is a link between those who wish to and can pay for reducing emissions and those who have opportunities to do so.

These challenges are amplified in low and middle income countries which grapple with limited institutional capacity and complex international finance frameworks. Strict eligibility requirements and cumbersome application processes further complicate access to vital financial resources, exacerbating disparities between promised and actual funds disbursed, leaving many communities without necessary support for climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives.

This event brings together insights from policymakers, international organisation representatives, the private sector, and academia to explore how markets, such as for voluntary carbon credits, can support the advancement of sustainable development goals.

Meet our speakers and chair

Asad Gilani is a public policy practitioner and management specialist. He is an officer of the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) currently serving as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Teddy Mugabo (@TeddyMugabo_) serves as Rwanda Green Fund's first female CEO. Her career spanning over a decade in the climate change and environmental sector, began at the Ministry of Environment. Prior to her appointment as CEO, Teddy Mugabo served as the Head of Business Development, now referred to as the Chief Strategy Officer, where she was responsible for business strategy and development. In addition, she served as the Fund’s Climate Change Sector Specialist and District Capacity Building Facilitator.

Basak Odemis currently works for the IFC’s Climate Business Development Department to enhance IFC’s carbon market activities in emerging countries. Basak is a carbon market and climate change expert with 20 years of experience. Between 2002 and 2018, Basak worked as an energy trader, business development executive, and emissions trading manager for Total Gas & Power Limited. She set up the emissions trading desk, managed the GHG exposure of Total Group, and contributed to the company’s climate strategy.

Rohini Pande is the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center at Yale University. She is also the faculty director of Inclusion Economics at Yale. Pande’s research, which has influenced policy in South Asia and globally, focuses on how institutions shape power relationships and patterns of economic, political, and environmental advantage in low-income countries. She is interested in the role of public policy in providing the poor and disadvantaged political and economic power, as well as how notions of economic justice and human rights can legitimize and enable such change.

Jonathan Leape is the Executive Director of the IGC. He is an Associate Professor of Economics at LSE. He has a PhD in Economics from Harvard University, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow, and degrees from Oxford University and Harvard University.

More about this event

This event will be available to watch on LSE Live. LSE Live is the new home for our live streams, allowing you to tune in and join the global debate at LSE, wherever you are in the world. If you can't attend live, a video will be made available shortly afterwards on LSE's YouTube channel.

Achieving a sustainable balance between human activity and the natural environment while maintaining economic growth will require innovation. We need to make economic growth cleaner, control environmental externalities, and protect human populations from environmental change. To identify and explore these innovations, LSE Environment Week brings together researchers from all fields of economics—including development, macroeconomics, industrial organisation, public, finance, labour, trade, urban, theory, behavioural, and political economy—as well as environmental, energy, and climate experts.

The Economics of Environment and Energy Programme (@STICERD_LSE), International Growth Centre (@The_IGC) and Programme on Innovation and Diffusion (@POID_LSE) within the LSE Department of Economics is convening LSE Environment Week in London from 23-26 September 2024. 

This is one of three public events during LSE Environment Week, the others are:

25 September - Trade and climate change: managing policies on the road to net zero

26 September – Sewage in our waters

Hashtag for this event: #LSEEvents

Featured image (used in source code with watermark added): Photo by Artem Podrez via Pexels.