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Poorer nations face $4 trillion sustainable development investment gap: UNCTAD
A lack of investment in less wealthy nations is a major obstacle to sustainable development, the UN’s trade and development body, UNCTAD, said on Wednesday.
Presenting the latest global trends in foreign direct investment, UNCTAD’s Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan said that developing countries faced a $4 trillion gap in investments in a number of sectors related to sustainable development, and that investments in the clean energy transition accounted for about half of this gap.
Ms. Grynspan reported that while investment in renewable energy has nearly tripled since the adoption of the Paris Agreement almost eight years ago, “we know that it's going to the developed countries and to the emerging economies”, and poorer states have largely been left out.
She said that more than 30 developing countries have not registered a single international investment in utility-size renewable energy generation since the landmark climate change treaty was adopted in 2015.
The UN official also stressed how much the global South needed two key agreements - the Black Sea Initiative for the exports of grain from Ukraine to global markets and the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Russian Federation and the UN to foster the exports of Russian food and fertilizers - to “continue bringing prices down” and stabilizing food and fertilizer markets around the world.
Launched in July 2022 in Istanbul, the Black Sea Initiative is up for renewal later this month.
UNCTAD also called for a series of policies and financing mechanisms to be put in place to help developing countries attract investment. Ms. Grynspan said that multilateral development banks can help scale up international investment by partnering with governments and the private sector – a measure that can reduce the spread on borrowing costs for energy investment projects in developing countries by up to 40 per cent.
The UNCTAD chief also insisted that investment played a “huge part” in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals which, she said, were “too big to fail”, calling them “the only game in town” whose success depended on collective action and global solidarity.
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TRT: 2’12”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH, NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATE SHOT: 5 July 2023
FORMAT: HYBRID PRESS BRIEFING
LOCATION: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior wide shot: UN flag alley UN Geneva.
- Cutaway: wide shot, speakers behind podium at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): “What are the sectors on SDG investment that have really showed a strong performance? Notably renewable energy. But we know that it's going to the developed countries and to the emerging economies. The rest of the countries are not really showing that performance.”
- Cutaway: medium lateral shot, attendees at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): “Developing countries face an investment gap of $2.2 trillion annually for the energy transition. This is more or less half of the funding gap for the Sustainable Development Goals. We have talked about a $4 trillion gap in investments for the Sustainable Development Goals.”
- Cutaway: wide shot, speakers behind podium, attendees at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): “The Black Sea Initiative for the exports of grain from Ukraine to global markets and the MoU [Memorandum of Understanding] with the Russian Federation is signed between the Russian Federation and the UN to foster the unimpeded exports of food and fertilizers from the Russian Federation, also to global markets. And we need both to continue bringing prices down and have stable markets of food in fertilizers in the world.”
- Cutaway: medium lateral shot, attendees at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): “If we combine international multilateral development banks, governments and private sector, that can reduce the spread on borrowing costs for energy investment projects by up to 40 per cent.”
- Various cutaways of speakers and journalists at the press conference, UN Geneva.
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As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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