San Giorgio Group 7th Annual Meeting Summary

The San Giorgio Group's 7th Annual Meeting, held in March 2019 and organized by the Climate Policy Initiative, focused on scaling up green, low-emissions finance to align with the Paris Agreement. The discussions highlighted the need for systemic transformation across financial institutions, the role of green banks, the urgency of adaptation and resilience investment, and the potential of blended finance to mobilize private capital.

• Despite progress in technology and regulatory achievements, green finance remains 'relatively boutique' due to silos in the donor community, a lack of risk appetite among donor finance, and public finance processes that are too slow to effectively partner with the private sector.
• To align financial flows with the Paris Agreement, development finance institutions (DFIs) must prioritize recipient country needs, increase their risk appetite to crowd in private finance, and implement 'do no harm' KPIs to avoid funding projects like coal and gas generation that conflict with climate goals.
• Green banks can trigger systemic change through various structures—standalone, add-ons to private institutions, or add-ons to DFIs—but their success depends on political leadership, credibility, staff skillset, and the ability to raise funds.
• Investment in climate adaptation and resilience is critically insufficient and slow. There is an urgent need to develop better products for resilient assets and to correctly price climate risk to avoid the misallocation of capital and threats to financial stability.
• Sustainable land use finance lacks a sufficient investable pipeline and commercial models. Examples of viable initiatives include the EIB's Natural Capital Financing Facility (EUR 120m), the Responsible Commodities Facility for soy farmers in Brazil, and the Forest Reserve Credits platform.
• Blended finance is a key tool for mobilizing private capital, with a global stock of approximately USD 48bn. Effectiveness can be improved by moving toward 'megadeals' rather than project-by-project approaches, increasing geographic reach in Africa, and allowing the private sector to structure deals.
• The world's 100 largest cities are projected to exhaust their own carbon budgets by 2025. Closing the investment gap requires integrating technology and finance, focusing on projects with environmental co-benefits (such as air quality), and improving the fiscal circumstances of cities in emerging markets.
• Climate-related financial disclosures are evolving through frameworks like France's Article 173 and the TCFD, but there is a need for greater policy predictability and a shift in narrative from focusing on risks to identifying incentives for corporations and investors.

APA

Climate Policy Initiative (2019). San Giorgio Group 7th Annual Meeting Summary. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Seventh-Annual-San-Giorgio-Group-Meeting-Summary.pdf

Chicago

Climate Policy Initiative. San Giorgio Group 7th Annual Meeting Summary. 2019. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Seventh-Annual-San-Giorgio-Group-Meeting-Summary.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Policy Initiative |title=San Giorgio Group 7th Annual Meeting Summary |date=May 2019 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Seventh-Annual-San-Giorgio-Group-Meeting-Summary.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climatepolicyinitiative2019san, author = {{Climate Policy Initiative}}, title = {{San Giorgio Group 7th Annual Meeting Summary}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2019}, month = may, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Seventh-Annual-San-Giorgio-Group-Meeting-Summary.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }