More than 150 fall ill from extreme heat at New Jersey graduations. A ‘mass casualty incident’ as temperatures soar to upper 90s fahrenheit in the region

Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, New Jersey. Photograph: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

 by Edward Helmore

More than 150 people fell ill with heat at an outdoor high school graduation ceremony in New Jersey on Monday – and the fire chief of the city of Paterson declared “a mass casualty incident” due to the overwhelming number of those who needed emergency treatment.

The incident happened as students from several local schools in the city gathered at Hinchliffe Stadium to hear their names read out as graduates. Paterson’s fire department said about 50 people were evaluated, and nine were sent to a local hospital from the stadium.

During a second ceremony at the stadium, about 100 people ended up needing treatment – and seven were hospitalized. The Paterson mayor, André Sayegh, declared a state of emergency due to the high heat and canceled all recreational activities “until further notice”.

 

Temperatures in the region have soared in recent days, registering in the upper 90s fahrenheit. But the humidity pushes heat indexes to 107F (42C). In all, 150 million people have been under heat alerts from Maine to eastern Texas.

The brutal temperatures stem from a so-called heat dome, which is when high pressure from Earth’s atmosphere compresses warm air and pushes it down to the surface. They have been increasingly common in the US in recent years because of rising global temperatures being spurred by Earth’s ongoing climate emergency.

Temperatures in New York City on Tuesday inspired the attorney general, Letitia James, to predict that the heat could benefit the progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani, who is running in the Big Apple’s closely watched Democratic mayoral primary.

“Mother Nature will have the last word,” James said. Taking an overt dig at Mamdani’s rival Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as New York governor amid accusations of sexually harassing women, James added: “She represents women scorned.

“How ironic.”

In the north-eastern US, several heat records look set to fall as temperatures in some locations are predicted to reach 110F. “Significant and dangerous heat continues today, with potentially some of the hottest temperatures in over a decade in some locations,” the weather service Accuweather said on Tuesday.

The national Storm Prediction Center says all areas of New Jersey have a “marginal” risk of seeing severe thunderstorms with small hail and damaging winds on Wednesday. That could bring a reprieve from the temperatures while giving residents other weather perils to worry about.

 

 

Tens of millions in US face dangerously hot weather in rare June heatwave. Much of country from Minnesota to Maine under heat advisory as temperatures expected to pass 100F this week

Man uses a portable fan as he tries to stay cool in Busch Stadium before a baseball game between the St Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday. Photograph: Jeff Roberson/AP

 Associated Press

 Tens of millions of people across the midwest and east braced on Sunday for another sweltering day of dangerously hot temperatures as a rare June heatwave continued to grip parts of the US.

Most of the north-eastern quadrant of the country from Minnesota to Maine was under some type of heat advisory on Sunday. So were parts of Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi.

The temperature had already reached 80F (26.6C) in the Chicago area by 7.30am on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. Forecasts called for heat indices of between 100 and 105F.

The heat index in Pittsburgh was expected to top 105F. The temperature in Columbus, Ohio, was 77F at 8.30am. Highs there were expected to reach 97F with a heat index around 104F.

 

Forecasts called for a heat index of 100F in Philadelphia on Sunday, with a 108F heat index on Monday.

The city’s public health department declared a heat emergency starting at noon on Sunday and ending on Wednesday evening. Officials directed residents to air-conditioned libraries, community centers and other locations, and set up a “heat line” staffed by medical professionals to discuss conditions and illnesses made worse by the heat. At Lincoln Financial Field, officials said each fan attending Sunday’s Fifa World Cup match would be allowed to bring in one 20oz plastic bottle of water.

Forecasters warned the heat index in Cromwell, Connecticut, would reach 105F on Sunday, which could make life brutal for golfers Tommy Fleetwood and Keegan Bradley as they compete during the final round of the Travelers Championship.

Elly De La Cruz, a Cincinnati Reds shortstop playing against the Cardinals in St Louis, and Trent Thornton, a Seattle Mariners reliever facing the Cubs in Chicago, got sick on Saturday while playing in the extreme heat.

 

Sunday marked the second straight day of extreme heat across the midwest and east coast. Heat indices on Saturday hit 103F in Chicago and 101F in Madison, Wisconsin, turning that city’s annual naked bike ride into a sticky and sweaty affair.

Lynn Watkins, 53, is the director of Sacred Hearts daycare in Sun Prairie, a Madison suburb. She said that she tried to sit outside on Saturday to grill but it was so hot she had to go inside. She plans to cancel all outdoor activities at the daycare on Monday with highs around 93F forecast.

“I can’t stand being outside when it’s like this,” she said. “I just want to sit in my air conditioning.”

Minneapolis baked under a heat index of 106F. The actual temperature was 96F, which broke the previous record for the date of 95F set in 1910, according to the weather service.

 

The heat is expected to persist into the coming week, with the hottest temperatures shifting eastward. New York City is expected to see highs around 95F on Monday and Tuesday. Boston is on track for highs approaching 100F on Tuesday, and temperatures in Washington DC were expected to hit 100F on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Meteorologists say a phenomenon known as a heat dome, a large area of high pressure in the upper atmosphere that traps heat and humidity, is responsible for the extreme temperatures.

Mark Gehring, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sullivan, Wisconsin, said this level of heat is not uncommon during the summer months in the US, although it usually takes hold in mid-July or early August. The most unusual facet of this heatwave is the sheer amount of territory sweltering under it, he said.

“It’s basically everywhere east of the Rockies,” he said, referring to the Rocky Mountains. “That is unusual, to have this massive area of high dewpoints and heat.”

 

 

Deadly weekend heat in England ‘100 times more likely’ due to climate crisis. High temperatures likely to cause deaths and will worsen in future as global heating intensifies, scientists warn

Researchers say the 32C expected this weekend in the south-east would have been expected only once every 2,500 years without the climate crisis. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

 Damian Carrington

The dangerous 32C heat that will be endured by people in the south-east of England on Saturday will have been made 100 times more likely by the climate crisis, scientists have calculated.

Global heating, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, is making every heatwave more likely and more intense. The 32C (89.6F) day forecast on Saturday would have been expected only once every 2,500 years without the climate crisis, the researchers said, and June heatwaves are now about 2-4C (3.6-7.2F) hotter than in the past.

 

The heat is expected to cause premature deaths, particularly among older and vulnerable people. More than 10,000 people died before their time in summer heatwaves between 2020 and 2024, according to the UK Health Security Agency, and the UK government has been heavily criticised for failing to properly prepare people for extreme weather.

Prolonged heat is especially dangerous as it gives no time for people’s bodies to cool off. Maximum temperatures in the south-east are expected to be above 28C for three consecutive days. The scientists said this heatwave was made 10 times more likely by the climate crisis.

Dr Ben Clarke at Imperial College London, who was part of the research team, said the culprit for the extreme heat was clear. “This weather just wouldn’t have been a heatwave without human-induced warming,” he said.

Climate breakdown drove the annual global temperature in 2024 to a new record and carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil and gas are still rising. If that continues for just two more years, passing the internationally agreed limit of 1.5C above preindustrial levels will be inevitable, intensifying the extreme weather already taking lives in the UK and across the globe.

Clarke said: “With every fraction of a degree of warming, the UK will experience hotter, more dangerous heatwaves. That means more heat deaths, more pressure on the NHS, more transport disruptions, and tougher work conditions. The best way to avoid a future of relentless heat is by shifting to renewable energy.”

Dr Friederike Otto, also at Imperial College London, said: “It is really important to highlight this early summer heatwave because the impacts of heat are still severely underestimated, and the UK is not prepared for this type of weather.” The Climate Change Committee, the government’s official advisers, said in April that the UK’s preparations for adapting to a changing climate were “inadequate, piecemeal and disjointed”.

Otto said: “Heatwaves are called the silent killer, because we don’t see people dropping dead on the street, but killers they are. In Europe in 2022, more than 60,000 people died in the summer from extreme heat.”

Maja Vahlberg at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre said: “Sadly most people die from heat indoors and alone, especially older people and those with underlying health conditions, such as lung or heart disease.”

Prof Mike Tipton, a physiologist at Portsmouth University, said: “The human body is not designed to tolerate prolonged exposure to this sort of extreme heat. It is undeniable that climate change is now costing British lives. Those politicians and commentators who pour scorn on climate action should reflect on this fact because, until we stop emitting greenhouse gases, these episodes are only likely to become more extreme.”

The extremely dry spring, combined with soaring temperatures, means the UK is also facing a high risk of wildfires, said Theodore Keeping, also at Imperial College London: “We’ve already seen the highest burnt area on record in the UK this year.” People should take extreme care with fires, barbecues and cigarettes, he said.

 

The rapid study of the role of global heating in the predicted weekend heatwave compared the likelihood of the high temperatures in today’s hotter climate with that in the cooler preindustrial period. The team, part of the World Weather Attribution group, was also able to reuse detailed climate modelling undertaken for a similar heatwave in 2022, speeding up their conclusions.

They said older people were at greatest risk from the high temperatures, but that others with existing vulnerabilities could also be affected, with the effectiveness of some medications being changed by the heat or affecting people’s ability to cool down.

Sweating is how the body cools so it is vital to drink plenty of water, the researchers said. Closing windows and curtains during the day and opening them in the cool of the night can help keep temperatures in homes down, they said. A recent study estimated that 80% of UK homes overheat in the summer.

Temperatures in the UK rose above 40C for the first time in 2022. The Met Office said on Wednesday that the UK had a 50/50 chance of temperatures soaring to 40C again in the next 12 years as the climate crisis worsens and that 45C could not be ruled out.

Extreme heat is more deadly than floods, earthquakes and hurricanes combined, according to a report by the insurance giant Swiss Re published on 12 June. “Up to half a million people globally succumb to the effects of extreme heat each year,” it said.

“Extreme heat used to be considered the ‘invisible peril’ because the impacts are not as obvious as of other natural perils,” said Jérôme Haegeli, chief economist at Swiss Re. “With a clear trend to longer, hotter heatwaves, it is important we shine a light on the true cost to human life, our economy, infrastructure, agriculture and healthcare.”

 

 

Climate crisis could hit yields of key crops even if farmers adapt, study finds. Production of staple crops projected to fall by as much as 120 calories per person per day for every 1C of heating

 

Maize was one of the staple crops covered by the study. Photograph: Maksim Safaniuk/Shutterstock

by  Ajit Niranjan

 

Some of our critical staple crops could suffer “substantial” production losses due to climate breakdown, a study has found, even if farmers adapt to worsening weather.

Maize, soy, rice, wheat, cassava and sorghum yields are projected to fall by as much as 120 calories per person per day for every 1C the planet heats up, according to new research in Nature, with average daily losses that could add up to the equivalent of not having breakfast.

The study found rising incomes and changes in farming practices could stem the losses by about a quarter by 2050 and by one-third by 2100 – though they would not stop them entirely.

 

“In a high-warming future, we’re still seeing caloric productivity losses in the order of 25% at global scale,” said Andrew Hultgren, an environmental economist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and lead author of the study. “It’s not as bad as a future where adaptation doesn’t happen at all, but it’s not this rosy ‘agriculture is going to benefit from climate change’ kind of picture.”

Farmers are among those hardest-hit by extreme weather events, but scientists have struggled to quantify what climate breakdown will do to food production. A major source of uncertainty is the extent to which farmers will adapt to hotter temperatures by changing which crops they use, when they plant and harvest them, and how they grow them.

The team of researchers from the US and China used data from 12,658 regions in 54 countries to capture the extent to which food producers have adapted to different changes in the climate. They applied these historical relations to models simulating future crop production as temperatures rise and economies grow, and compared the losses with a hypothetical world in which global heating stopped in the early 2000s.

 

In an extreme heating scenario, the study found, the relative yield for a crop such as soy would fall by 26% by 2100, even after accounting for adaptation, rising incomes and the effect of plants growing faster due to extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

A more realistic heating scenario – closer to the level that current policies will cause – would lead to yield losses of 16% for soy, 7.7% for wheat and 8.3% for corn, the study found. Rice was the only one of the six crops the researchers studied whose yields would rise because of climate change, with an expected gain of 4.9%.

The global population is projected to rise from about 8 billion today to 10 billion by the end of the century, increasing demand for food as carbon pollution warps weather patterns. The researchers found the greatest losses would hit modern-day “bread basket” regions with highly productive lands, but added that people in poorer countries would be among the ones least able to afford food.

“In a lot of climate impact studies, the global poor get hurt, and that’s true here too,” said Hultgren. “What is different from a lot of the previous work out there is that relatively rich, well-to-do portions of the world that are bread baskets are actually hit the hardest.”

The research, which uses econometric methods to gauge the total effect of adapting, contrasts with previous studies that explicitly model biophysical interactions. A study in Nature Communications in 2022 using the latter approach found timely adaptation of growing periods would increase actual crop yields by 12%.

 

Jonas Jägermeyr, a researcher at Columbia Climate School and co-author of the study, said the new research did not cover adaptation options that are not implemented today and that its results were likely to be pessimistic.

“Empirical impact studies are known to be overly pessimistic when it comes to far-into-the-future scenarios,” he said. “Process-based models show the importance of plant growth interactions that cannot be empirically trained on historical data.”

But such models have also been criticised for exploring what is theoretically possible without reflecting real-world constraints, such as market failures, human error and the availability of funds.

“The findings [of the new study] are reasonable but represent one end of a legitimate scientific debate,” said Ehsan Eyshi Rezaei, a crop scientist at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research.

He added: “I view these results as a valuable empirical reality check showing we cannot assume perfect adaptation will save us – even if the truth likely lies between their pessimistic projections and [other researchers’] optimistic ones.”

The battle over a $2.9 trillion climate risk

 

A repaired crack in the walls of a house in the village of Presles-en-Brie, outside Paris, on June 2. Photographer: Cyril Marcilhacy/Bloomberg

 By Claudia Cohen, Gautam Naik, and Tom Fevrier

 Today’s newsletter looks at how subsidence is become a worsening risk due to climate change. Unfortunately for homeowners, insurers don’t want to pick up the tab. 

 

When Bernard Weisse first noticed a tiny crack in the outer wall of his house on the outskirts of Paris, he dismissed it as little more than a nuisance. But in the four years since, a spiderweb of fissures has spread from floor to ceiling and snaked into virtually every corner of his home. 

“We can hear loud cracking noises especially when it’s warm outside,” said the retired salesman and father of three. “Sometimes, I think we should get all our stuff together and leave.” 

Like a growing number of people around the world, Weisse is grappling with subsidence — a term for the sinking land that’s causing damage to homes and other structures built on it. The slow-moving climate disaster has already caused tens of billions in damage and has the potential to affect 1.2 billion people in areas accounting for more than $8 trillion of economic output. 

While groundwater extraction, mining and earthquakes also cause the ground to shift, global warming vastly increases the risks. What happens is that soil swells with winter rain and then shrinks as it dries in the heat, cracking foundations in the process.

Because of its soil and its status as the world’s fastest-warming continent, Europe is particularly exposed. The European Central Bank estimates the region’s potential damage from sinking land at more than €2.5 trillion ($2.9 billion) across all euro-area financial institutions. Although most of that is classified as “low risk,” this summer is forecast to be one of the hottest and driest on the continent, creating perfect conditions for subsidence damage. 

For Weisse, the cost for repairs could climb to as much as €200,000 to keep his two-story home from crumbling. That would be part of the estimated €43 billion in damage that households face by 2050 in France alone, according to insurance trade group France Assureurs. With that much money at stake, it’s set off a battle over who will ultimately have to pay. 

Weisse’s town of Presles-en-Brie has teamed up with 14 nearby villages and sued the state to have their subsidence issues recognized as a natural catastrophe like flash floods and wildfires. That would trigger payments from insurers and the government, powerful opponents for the municipalities.

“It’s David against Goliath,” said Dominique Rodriguez, who’s been mayor of the pastoral community of 2,300 people for more than three decades.

 

So far, the big guys are winning. In Presles-en-Brie, at least 40 homeowners have sought subsidence compensation since 2020, and while two houses were granted CatNat recognition, others were rejected.  

Europe is the epicenter because of its clay-rich soil and relatively high population density. Also, buildings from the 1970s and 80s — when a postwar housing construction boom was still underway — are particularly susceptible.

While Presles-en-Brie is an early victim, the issues are global. Jakarta has sunk more than 2.5 meters (8 feet) in a decade, and Tehran drops as much as 22 centimeters a year. In the US, Houston is most affected, with 40% of the city subsiding more than half a centimeter a year. 

More than 425,000 Dutch houses will be exposed over the next decade, with subsidence already lowering house prices by as much as 5%, according to a recent study by the Tinbergen Institute. Repair costs can exceed €100,000 per home and are rarely covered by insurance. 

“The situation is urgent,” said Karsten Klein, director of advocacy at Vereniging Eigen Huis, a Dutch homeowners association. “Waiting until homes become uninhabitable is not an option.” 

 

Soaring Temperatures Threaten Crops, So Scientists Are Looking to Alter the Plants. Genetically altering crops may be key to helping them adapt to extreme temperatures. But shrinking funds and social acceptance stand in the way.

Photosynthesis, the process through which plants get energy, stops working at higher temperatures, which are becoming more common in many of the world’s agricultural regions.Credit...Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

 

 

By Rebecca Dzombak

 

 

The world’s bread baskets are heating up, threatening the global food supply. Climate change has already shrunk yields for major crops like wheat and maize, and crop losses are likely to worsen in the coming decades.

But researchers are trying to avoid that future by helping plants deal with heat.

“There’s a lot of excitement in identifying why it is that some crops that are grown in the most extreme conditions are able to survive,” said Carl Bernacchi, a crop researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the author of one of a trio of papers on crop modification that were published Thursday in the journal Science.

Farmers can help crops beat the heat with water-based cooling, but that method has limitations. Modifying crops, either through traditional crossbreeding, artificially sped-up mutation or direct genetic editing, offers control over how plants respond to heat.

Photosynthesis, the process through which plants get energy, grinds to a halt between 40 and 45 degrees Celsius, or 104 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit, temperatures that are becoming more common in many of the world’s agricultural regions.

 

“Photosynthesis really dictates the currency plants have to use,” Dr. Bernacchi said. “If photosynthesis falters, plants run out of energy and die.”

Dr. Bernacchi and his co-authors reviewed the potential of editing rubisco, the key enzyme that transforms carbon into sugar, and its partner, rubisco activase. In plants that grow in warm climates, rubisco activase seems to work better at helping rubisco function. Transferring that molecule from hot-climate plants to cool-climate plants can help cool-climate plants adapt to heat. Simply boosting its activity could help, too.

Altering photosynthesis is still a distant goal, said Walid Sadok, a crop physiologist at the University of Minnesota who was not involved with the paper.

“It’s a complex endeavor,” he said. “It’s still in its infancy, but it’s an interesting idea.”

A plant’s genome can also be altered to change its leaf architecture, spacing leaves out and setting them at just the right angle to ensure a balance of sun and shade that can help maintain temperature and productivity. Editing a leaf’s reflectivity and the amount of chlorophyll, or green pigment, that it contains can help, too.

Plants’ temperature-sensing system could also be modified. In a second Science paper, researchers propose a new way of understanding the network of proteins that control plants’ responses to heat. Instead of plants having discrete “thermometers,” temperature sensing could be spread out in many plant systems and proteins, the researchers say. That could provide many targets for editing for heat tolerance.

 

“We could develop designer crops tailored to future climates,” said Suresh Balasubramanian, a plant geneticist at Monash University in Australia who led the study.

Selective crossbreeding of plants is still a reliable option and should be continued while researchers work toward more complicated genetic editing goals, Dr. Sadok said.

But as temperatures climb beyond levels that modern crops can withstand, genetic editing may be more crucial, Dr. Bernacchi said.

“We may get to a point where existing crops don’t have the genetic diversity we need to adapt crops to the growth conditions that we’re going to see in the near future,” he said. “In that situation, we might need to be creative.”

Wild plants hold a vast pool of genetic diversity that could inspire new ways to keep crops cool. Plants can thrive in the hottest and driest places on Earth, such as Death Valley in California, the Atacama Desert in South America and the Namib Desert in southern Africa, where temperatures regularly soar above the threshold for photosynthesis.

 

Exploring these plants’ genomes could give scientists genes to transfer into staple crops such as soybeans, wheat and rice, bringing along heat tolerance. Scientists can also work backward, starting with a highly heat-tolerant plant and using genetic editing to add other desirable traits, like taste and size.

“We’re trying to cast our net more broadly,” said Sam Yeaman, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Calgary who wrote a third paper. “If we limit ourselves to only looking at crops, we’re going to have a tiny slice of the picture.”

Some complex genetic editing projects, such as photosynthesis or the temperature-sensing system, are years away from hitting farmers’ fields. Other genetic editing tools for heat tolerance, like changes to leaf architecture, could be available sooner, if they could get field tested and permitted, an expensive and time-consuming process.

“Funding right now in the United States doesn’t look particularly promising for the future of this research,” Dr. Bernacchi said.

And acceptance of genetically modified foods has been shrinking over the past decade or so, said Dominique Brossard, who studies the communication of controversial topics at the University of Wisconsin. The Trump administration’s movement toward “natural” foods could further stymie willingness to adopt genetically modified foods, she said.

 

 

Bank unveils green loans plan to unlock trillions for climate finance. IADB’s proposals involve lenders using public money to buy up renewable energy loans in poor countries

 

A street in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, devastated by a hurricane. IADB says the green loans proposal could be an ‘engine’ for growth. Photograph: Delmer Martínez/AP

 

Fiona Harvey Environment editor

 

 

An innovative plan to use public money to back renewable energy loans in the developing world could liberate cash from the private sector for urgently needed climate finance.

Avinash Persaud, a special adviser on climate change to the president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), who developed the proposals, believes the plan could drive tens of billions of new investment in the fledgling green economy in poorer countries within a few years, and could provide the bulk of the $1.3tn in annual climate finance promised to the developing world by 2035.

“This could be an engine for green growth, and produce the trillions needed for climate finance in the future,” he told the Guardian. “It could be a transformation.”

 

His ideas will be set out in detail at a UN meeting in Germany this week, kicking off negotiations for the Cop30 climate summit that will take place in Brazil this November against a worrying global background for the discussions.

Having missed a deadline in February, the world’s largest economies still need to submit plans for their greenhouse gas emissionsbefore the Brazil summit, but so far only a few have done do so.

But research seen by the Guardian, carried out by the campaign group Oil Change International, shows that many developed countries are still planning to expand their extraction of oil and gas, despite promising at Cop28 in 2023 to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

The analysis found that the US, Canada, Norway and Australia were responsible for 70% of projected new oil and gas expansion in 2025-35.

Romain Ioualalen, the global policy lead at Oil Change International, said: “It is sickening that countries with the highest incomes and outsized historical responsibility for causing the climate crisis are planning massive oil and gas expansion with no regard for the lives and livelihoods at stake.”

At the two-week meeting in Bonn, which ends on 26 June, the vital issue of finance for developing countries – which they need in order to cut their emissions and cope with the impacts of extreme weather – will also come to the fore.

The proposals by Persaud and others to buy up loans to renewable energy projects in the developing world could allow billions of dollars of private sector cash to flood the sector, in a big boost to global climate finance.

The plan, which is being pioneered by the IADB, would involve getting taxpayer-funded development banks to buy existing loans to green projects in poor countries, which would free up investment from private sector lenders.

Such loans are relatively low risk because they are already performing – but because they are in developing countries, with credit ratings lower than those of rich states – mainstream private sector investors such as pension funds are often forbidden from touching them because of their strict rules on credit worthiness.

But if those loans are backed instead by development banks, which can provide guarantees against default, and which themselves have impeccable credit ratings, the “repackaged” loan finance can meet private sector criteria.

 

The Barbados PM, Mia Mottley, who launched a blistering attack on rich countries at Cop27 climate talks. Photograph: Independent Photo Agency Srl/Alamy

 

“The lightbulb moment was realising there was $50bn in performing green loans in Latin America,” said Persaud, a former adviser to Barbados’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, who has championed climate finance. “Why not buy that to enable new projects to be created?”

Key to the concept is that when the loans are bought up by the development banks, which pay a small premium to the current private sector creditors that own the loans, the originators of the renewable energy projects must agree to use the finance they gain access to in new projects.

This creates a “virtuous circle”, by which when the loans are bought up, developers – who already have expertise in setting up successful renewable energy schemes – seek new opportunities, which leads to further investment.

IADB is working on launching the programme now, and is expected to send a request for proposals within the next few months, before Cop30. The initial portfolio of loans is likely to be about $500m to £1bn.

Several private and public sector experts said Persaud’s ideas could have a big impact.

Mattia Romani, a senior partner at Systemiq, a consultancy that is working with Cop30 on climate finance, said: “It is a very powerful initiative, both pragmatic and innovative. Given the constraints we will inevitably face in the coming years, securitisation is one of the few realistic tools to reach [the sums needed].

“This initiative is designed to unlock institutional capital by leveraging the balance sheets of domestic commercial banks – securitising their loans so that they can meet the fiduciary needs of institutional investors, and turning them into engines for transition finance. What’s new is the direct engagement with local banks – we are starting with a pilot in Latin America.”