A cohesive strategy to attract investment is needed to complement systems designed to draw in climate funding, according to a KPMG official who attended COP29.

Charlotte Reboul, a manager for government, healthcare and sustainability at the international professional services firm, said: “It needs to be a plan that lays out public, private, non-profit organisations’ roles and responsibilities.

“There needs to be a clear focus, with clear details on investible projects and then going out to market them.”

Ms Reboul, who is based in Bermuda, attended COP29, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Baku, Azerbaijan, last month and participated in several meetings at the event.

She said she gained valuable insights into the latest strategies and global policies that were discussed at the annual event where representatives from around the world discussed climate action.

Ms Reboul shared her experiences and perspectives on the key takeaways and highlights from the conference, which included the impact of climate change on small island nations and funding available to them.

At the conference, she said she wanted to learn more about the state of climate finance and programmes from the perspective of British Overseas Territories.

She said she learnt that while the British Virgin Islands worked along with the United Kingdom on climate projects, the island nation had “branched out” to access more capital for sustainable projects.

She said: “They created a trust fund to finance blue economy and green economy-related projects.

“It is a type of internal climate fund that would tap into local money and they would also go abroad to attract investment from the BVI to help with their projects locally.”

She added: “It was quite innovative how they put it together.”

She said for the OTs at COP29, the conversations were “quite open” about them not being eligible for climate funding.

However, she added: “It does not mean there is not funding available.

“It just takes a different form and it requires a little bit more work on the ground here in Bermuda to put forward a vision that will attract investors.”

Ms Reboul said she learnt at the event that there were finance mechanisms put in place from previous conferences that were not being fully utilised by other islands within the region.

She said only six Caribbean countries utilised funding — pegged at $145 million — from the UN’s Adaptation Fund that supported countries with concrete, scalable projects.

However, she said, while some islands do have access to the available funds, there are barriers preventing them from tapping the money.

Ms Reboul said: “We don’t talk about it a lot, because the main conversation at COP29 was around the official negotiations by countries.

“But it didn’t get a lot of coverage, the fact that the money that is already committed is not being used.”

She said while some countries are not aware of climate funding, others face challenges in applying, as the process required technical sustainability support to apply and access the funds.

She said: “Even though their programmes and their projects on the ground might be entirely relevant and align with the priorities of the funds, the application process is really cumbersome.”

Ms Reboul said through the discussions, she learnt that private investors were searching for sustainable investments.

She noted: “They are all looking for projects, almost desperately, but they were all complaining that they could not find a pipeline of projects that were sustainable or which had a lot of visibility.”

However, she said through its work as an adviser, KPMG was aware that governments and businesses in the OTs and Caribbean were working on multiple investible projects.

She added: “There is clearly a disconnect, because I was sitting in the middle and there were these conversations, there is clearly something there.

“Investors need visibility because there are large institutional investors who have committed to making their portfolio more sustainable.

“They want to find sustainable investments but this information needs to be readily available.”

She said in the Caribbean region there were multiple impactful projects being undertaken in pockets by different entities, but she noted that there was little communication on their cohesiveness.

Ms Reboul said the need for a clear, cohesive climate finance strategy had arisen, one led by government in collaboration with the private sector and other stakeholders.

She said Barbados has been utilising the mechanism in its climate finance strategy and she added: “I learnt about their investment plan, which I thought is a great example of articulating what the role of private capital is and that it is really for the government to drive that vision.”

She added: “I was quite impressed, so there is really something we could do here in Bermuda.”