A Conversation with the European Investment Bank (EIB)

As one of the world’s main financers of climate action, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has placed sustainability at the heart of its activities. In 2019, in a landmark decision, the EIB announced an end to lending for unabated fossil fuel energy projects. Last year the EIB invested more than 12 billion dollars outside of the EU, through its new development arm EIB Global, in projects intended to create stability, promoting sustainable growth, and fighting climate change. However, despite the grim warnings from the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), a host of factors from the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, inflationary pressures, food and energy crises, and debt concerns are complicating decarbonization efforts.

In this conversation in the margins of the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings , CGD President Masood Ahmed, Mikaela Gavas, CGD Europe Managing Director and Senior Policy Fellow, EIB President Werner Hoyer, and EIB Global’s head of lending for Africa, Caribbean, Pacific, Asia and Latin America, Maria Shaw-Barragan, will discuss how the EIB and other multilateral development banks can maintain the momentum in the face of the climate emergency while managing the ‘polycrisis’, and staying focused on development and the pressing issue of MDB reform.

00:00 - Intro video
01:00 - Welcome
02:17 - Speaker introductions
03:02 - Conversation
41:34 - Audience Q&A
01:00:09 - Closing