Finance would play a key role in supporting green, low-emission and climate resilient development, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) director for environmental finance Dr Yannick Glemarec said on Monday.

But to support this development, particularly in developing and emerging economies, there were three challenges that needed to be overcome.

These were access to new and innovative sources of climate finance, promotion of synergies between developmental and climate finance and the use and delivery of limited sources of public finance to catalyse climate capital.

Glenmarec added that the issue of resources also became a critical one as climate negotiators attempted to bridge the divide between developed and developing countries.

“Many countries already battle to achieve food security for their people, meet rising energy demands and provide clean water and sanitation. Climate change is exacerbating these struggles, and will also pose challenges for human health, particularly through the migration of pests and a greater incidence of waterborne diseases.”

While developed countries bear much greater historic responsibility for current levels of greenhouse gases, emerging economies are at a greater risk from the effects of these gases.

He also stressed the need for private sector investment in clean energy in tackling climate change, particularly for developing economies.

Glemarec identified a four-step process to selecting the appropriate combination of policy and financial instruments, which included identifying priority mitigation and adaptation options, assessing barriers to technology diffusion, determining an appropriate policy mix and selecting financing options to create an enabling policy environment.

He said that sound public policy, private finance, infrastructure, independent power producers, clean energy development and skills were critical to achieving climate change goals in a country.

A renewable energy feed-in tariff was also considered a dominant mechanism for catalysing finance.

Glenmarec stressed the importance of creating long-term transparency for the private sector and added that a country had to ensure that it “does not change its mind” when developing regulation and policy for clean energy development.