Jos Delbeke first EIB Climate Chair at the EUI
Date
16 Sep 2020
Sections
InfoSociety
Prof. Jos Delbeke has been appointed as the European University Institute’s (EUI) first European Investment Bank (EIB) Chair on Climate Change Policy and International Carbon Markets ('EIB Climate Chair'). The former Director-General of the European Commission's DG Climate Action will work on issues related to carbon pricing and sustainable finance.
Set within the EUI School of Transnational Governance and building on the expertise already available at the Institute, the Chair will consolidate the EUI’s position as a world-class centre of research and teaching on climate change policy.
The EIB Climate Chair is supported by EIB, the EU’s climate bank and the world’s largest multilateral provider of finance for projects supporting climate action. It will connect the EUI’s research and training with the EIB’s expertise in both financial and non-financial aspects of climate policy, for example through the organisation of joint scientific events.
Prof Jos Delbeke said: “I am honoured to be appointed as the first EIB Climate Chair. In the next five years, my colleagues and I will work to promote the transmission of the best climate policy practices through research, teaching and dissemination. Being able to count on the complementary expertise at the EUI and the EIB will be an asset.”
“The EIB Climate Chair comes at a time when the EU’s climate bank is drastically increasing its ambition for climate”, said Emma Navarro, EIB Vice-President in charge of Climate. “We are aiming to support €1 trillion of investments in climate and sustainability between 2021 and 2030, to increase our share of climate financing to 50% of our operations by 2025 and to align all our financing activities with the principles and goals of the Paris agreement. Professor Delbeke brings with him a long experience and expertise in climate action policies and sustainable finance and we look forward to working with him to continue fostering research and awareness on topics and policies that are fundamental to achieving the European goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.”
The EIB is committed to the EU’s plan to achieve a climate neutral European economy by 2050 and make its contribution across the different dimensions of climate action.
Issues pertaining to sustainability, and particularly climate governance, constitute one of the core clusters of activity at the EUI’s School of Transnational Governance, and one of the specialisations of its two-year Master programme in Transnational Governance that was launched in September 2020.
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NOTES TO THE EDITORS:
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals.
The EIB is the world's largest multilateral lender for climate investments. Its goal is to be a leader in mobilising the finance needed to limit the average global temperature increase to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels in order to meet the Paris Agreement objectives. On 14 November 2019, the EIB’s Board of Directors approved its new climate objectives and the new energy lending policy. The Bank will gradually increase its financing for climate and environmental objectives by up to 50% by 2025, with the goal of ensuring that the EIB Group mobilises at least €1 trillion in the critical decade between 2021 and 2030 to promote investments helping to meet these objectives. It also announced its intention to align all EIB Group activities with the Paris Agreement. To this end, the EIB will cease financing fossil fuel-based projects from late 2021.
Within the EIB Group, the Institute promotes and supports social, cultural, and academic initiatives with European stakeholders and the public at large. It manages the cooperation agreements (partnerships, MoUs..) of the EIB Group with universities and is a key pillar of the EIB Group’s community and citizenship engagement.
The European University Institute is an international postgraduate teaching and research institute based in Florence, Italy. It was founded in 1972 by the six founding Member States of the European Communities and today is supported by 23 contracting states from the European Union. The EUI offers Ph.D. and Post-Doctoral programmes in Economics; Political and Social Sciences; History; and Law, and is home to the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the School of Transnational Governance.