COP32 Leadership Engages Global Finance Community at London Climate Action Week Opening
Dr. Gedion Timothewos appeared at the London Stock Exchange on Monday to open London Climate Action Week, where global leaders are discussing how to direct more climate finance to lower-income countries.
Ethiopia's Foreign Affairs Minister and President-Designate of COP32, H.E. Dr. Gedion Timothewos, joined the ceremonial opening of the London Stock Exchange on Monday to mark the start of London Climate Action Week as the UN climate summit Ethiopia is set to host in Addis Ababa in 2027. The country is continuing its mission to plant 65 billion trees before world leaders arrive — roughly eight for every person alive on earth today. To date, Ethiopia has planted 48 billion seedlings, with 85% of those seedlings surviving and regenerating at up to ten times the rate of what was planted at key sites.
Also present at the opening were Rachel Kyte, the UK's Special Representative for Climate, and Samed Ağırbaş, the High-Level Climate Champion appointed for COP31, which precedes the Ethiopian summit. The ceremony was hosted by Jane Goodland, Group Head of Sustainability at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).
London Climate Action Week, now in its eighth year, runs through 25 June. LSEG is co-hosting a daily broadcast called Finance Live with the Green Finance Institute, anchored by Axel Threlfall of Reuters, featuring more than 40 speakers across the week.
Tuesday's programme includes a carbon-markets session with the Coalition to Grow Carbon Markets and the UN Sustainable Stock Exchanges initiative, and a separate event marking companies that hold LSEG's Green Economy Mark — awarded to listed companies that earn more than half their revenues from environmental goods and services. Roughly 140 companies currently hold the designation, with a combined market value of about £60 billion.
On Wednesday, a climate transition event organised with TPI, WBCSD, ITPN and UNEP FI will be livestreamed in two parts. Thursday features a market opening to mark the UK-China Green Finance Taskforce, which has been working to align how the two countries define and classify green investments — a technical issue that affects the cost and speed of directing capital to clean-energy projects in emerging markets. The week closes with the World Climate Investment Summit on Friday, hosted with the World Climate Foundation.
Climate finance flows to lower-income countries have been a recurring point of dispute in UN negotiations. Wealthy nations committed at the 2009 Copenhagen summit to mobilising $100 billion a year for developing countries by 2020 — a target met late and mostly through loans. Negotiators are now working toward a new collective goal for 2035, with figures discussed ranging up to $1.3 trillion a year.
Dr. Gedion's participation in London this week puts Ethiopia inside these discussions ahead of its formal role chairing COP32. African governments have generally pushed for more of the finance to arrive as grants rather than loans, and for a greater share to go toward adaptation — building flood defences, drought-resistant agriculture and early warning systems — rather than emissions reduction alone.