By William James
DUBAI (Reuters) -United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, whose country is hosting the COP28 climate summit, announced on Friday a $30 billion climate fund that aims to attract $250 billion of investment by the end of the decade.
Dubbed ALTÉRRA, the fund will allocate $25 billion to climate strategies and $5 billion to incentivise investment flows into the Global South, a statement by the COP28 Presidency said.
In collaboration with global asset managers BlackRock, Brookfield and TPG, ALTÉRRA has committed $6.5 billion to climate-dedicated funds for global investments, including the Global South, the statement said.
The fund aimed “to steer private markets towards climate investments and focus on transforming emerging markets and developing economies,” where it said higher perceived risks had deterred traditional investment.
BlackRock said in a statement ALTÉRRA would put $1 billion into its Climate Transition-Oriented Private Debt strategy, and had also committed $1 billion to invest in, or co-invest alongside, BlackRock’s infrastructure equity business.
BlackRock Chief Executive Larry Fink said the fund could be transformative.
“The opportunities in the under-served part of the world need much more attention,” Fink told reporters at the event.
Brookfield Asset Management said it was launching a new Catalytic Transition Fund, to focus exclusively on developing countries, with up to $1 billion of ALTÉRRA cash. ALTÉRRA has also committed to invest $2 billion into its second Brookfield Global Transition Fund.
ALTÉRRA was established by Lunate, a newly set up Abu Dhabi-based alternative investment manager with over $50 billion in assets.
Lunate is owned by its senior management and Chimera Investment LLC, which is part of a business empire overseen by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser and the president’s brother.
The UAE has drawn criticism for its plans to expand oil and gas production as the world struggles to contain the climate-damaging carbon emissions these fossil fuels produce.
Against that backdrop, the UAE has been keen to encourage finance and business more broadly to commit money to the climate fight and was expected to open its own chequebook throughout the two-week U.N. climate summit.
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(Reporting by William James; Writing by Nadine Awadalla and Hadeel Al Sayegh; Additional reporting by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes; Editing by Susan Fenton, Sharon Singleton, Miral Fahmy and Barbara Lewis)
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