BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 9. Climate projects
need to become more attractive to investors, while climate
commitments must be transformed into concrete investment projects,
Jean Baderschneider, former vice president of ExxonMobil said,
Trend’s correspondent
reports from the event.
She made the remarks during Baku Climate Action Week 2026 (BCAW
2026).
Significant progress has been made in climate policy over the
past decade, she said. “Before the Paris Agreement, the world was
on track for a 4-degree Celsius temperature increase. The actions
taken since then have significantly changed the trajectory of
emissions growth. Subsequent COP conferences have kept climate
change at the center of the international agenda and created a
mechanism for progressively increasing ambition. The targets agreed
under the Paris Agreement are becoming increasingly difficult to
achieve. Global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise rather
than decline, while the remaining carbon budget is being depleted
at an alarming rate,” she said.
According to Baderschneider, one of the key challenges facing
the COP process is moving from setting targets to practical
implementation. “The central task is to make the implementation of
climate commitments easier, faster and more attractive for
investment,” she said.
She emphasized that from the private sector’s perspective, the
key issue is moving from climate targets to making final investment
decisions on specific projects. “The availability of capital is not
the main problem in implementing climate projects. Significant
amounts of capital are available. However, this capital will flow
into green energy and climate projects only if they are attractive
investments. This requires certainty over returns, policy
stability, clear permitting procedures, a reliable buyer for the
product or energy, appropriate risk allocation and confidence that
governments will consistently adhere to the course they have
chosen,” she said.
She also stressed the need to strengthen public-private
partnerships. “Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) should
become not only national statements of ambition but also the basis
for developing investment-ready project portfolios. Governments,
international financial institutions, investors, project developers
and industry representatives should jointly identify the barriers
preventing projects from reaching final investment decisions and
find ways to remove them. We need practical climate policy based on
financing and implementation architecture. Less abstract ambition —
more implementation mechanisms,” Baderschneider said.
She also said there were plans to establish a dedicated platform
at COP31 for working with specific climate projects. “We hope to
create a deal-making platform at COP31, select several NDCs and
several projects under those contributions, bring together the
necessary stakeholders and move three to five projects through to
final investment decisions,” she added.
