Reduced green investment will put a spanner in the efforts to fasttrack solutions for climate change. The number of climate mitigation and adaptation investment projects declined 7 per cent and 12 per cent respectively from January through September 2022, as the world grapples with an economic slowdown, a new report showed.

Shrinking investments across industries, especially those that play a major role in tackling climate change, was in stark contrast to the growth seen in 2021, according to the report published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The gap between mitigation and adaptation financing was also huge this year, the UNCTAD analysts observed: Mitigation projects accounted for 94 per cent of international climate investments.

"Most mitigation investments were in renewable energy and, to a lesser extent, in various energy efficiency projects," UNCTAD added. As much as two-thirds of the international project finance deals and greenfield investments in renewables went to developed economies, the analysts noted. More than half the investment projects on renewable energy were in Europe in the first three quarters of 2022, they wrote. UNCTAD projected a slowdown in global investment for 2022 in another report it published October 20, 2022.

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