Turkey to launch 'climate bridge' at COP31 to unlock green investment

Turkey’s government is planning to launch a major climate initiative at the COP31 summit later this year, aiming to close the gap between global capital and underdeveloped green projects, finance minister Mehmet Simsek said on June 25 during a speech at the Climate Resilience Finance Summit during London Climate Action Week.

The minister also unveiled Turkey’s plans for the "COP31 Climate Implementation Bridge," a framework designed to help governments translate raw climate strategies into "bankable," investment-ready project pipelines that can attract private capital and commercial banks.

"Our priority at COP31 is clear. We now need to speed up the implementation of these plans," Simsek told attendees, adding: "The key is financing. We must mobilise sufficient capital in time and direct it toward investments that deliver tangible results for people."

The initiative arrives amid a severe shortfall in funding for adaptation and resilience. According to data cited by Simsek, meeting global climate targets will require an annual investment of $6.3 trillion to $6.7 trillion by 2030, a stark contrast to current global climate finance flows of roughly $2 trillion.

The deficit is most acute across developing countries. Excluding China, developing countries face an annual climate financing requirement of approximately $2.4 trillion, yet receive only about one-tenth of that amount today.

Crucially, Ankara does not intend for the initiative to act as a standalone entity.

"Our goal is not to establish a new platform or institution. We want to strengthen cooperation within the existing ecosystem and ensure that financing reaches the areas where it is needed most," Simsek said.

Instead, the minister argued that the core bottleneck is programmatic rather than a lack of liquidity.

"The problem is not a shortage of capital," he remarked, noting that significant pools of private capital remain in active search of attractive returns while prospective climate projects frequently struggle to secure backing due to inadequate preparation.

For Turkey, which is set to host the UN climate summit later this year, the economic toll of climate volatility is already bleeding into macroeconomic indicators. Simsek pointed to a severe agricultural frost followed by a drought in Turkey last year, which disrupted millions of livelihoods and left a direct mark on the country's monetary targets.

"I'm not offering this as an excuse but inflation came in slightly higher than we had projected, largely because of these shocks," Simsek said, adding that climate resilience is now a matter of economic competitiveness rather than purely environmental policy.

"Economies that are better prepared for shocks are more productive, more competitive and more attractive for investment," he added.

Globally, the financial buffer against these events remains thin. Only one-quarter of climate-related financial losses are currently covered by insurance, forcing state balance sheets, corporations and households to absorb the residual costs.

To counter this vulnerability, Simsek called for targeted investment pipelines in water management, climate-smart agriculture, sustainable land use, resilient infrastructure and healthy ecosystems.

Unlocking the necessary long-term capital will require a broader institutional push beyond multilateral development banks. The minister called on regulators, export credit agencies, credit rating agencies, and local financial institutions to align to mobilise deep pools of investment.

Ankara stated that it is prepared to collaborate with international partners through its upcoming COP31 presidency to scale up these resilience structures and accelerate the deployment of capital into active project pipelines.