Sarah BENDAHOU
Research Fellow – Development financeSarah works on public and private financial institutions’ alignment with the Paris Agreement’s goals. She also contributes to I4CE’s role of holding the Secretariat of the “Mainstreaming Climate in Financial Institutions” Initiative.
Prior to joining I4CE, Sarah worked for several years in climate change and sustainability consulting at ERM, supporting companies in assessing their direct and indirect climate impact and defining emissions reduction targets, assessing their exposure to climate-related physical and transition risks, and aligning with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations. Before that, she worked at the Energy & Climate Branch of the United Nations Environment Programme on technical assistance projects in energy efficiency, in particular for beneficiary countries in Latin America.
Sarah holds a dual-master’s degree in Environmental Science and Policy, from Sciences Po Paris and Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris VI).
Last contributions
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17/04/2024
Climate Brief
Ambitious alignment with the Paris Agreement in public development banks
At the Spring Meetings, during an event with senior climate representatives from Multilateral Development Banks, I4CE, E3G, Germanwatch and NewClimate Institute officially launched a common position paper on what ambitous Paris alignment means for public development banks. This paper summarises years of research on Paris alignment to shed light on best practice and hopefully support decision makers in taking and implementing credible climate commitments. -
08/03/2024
Foreword of the week
Fossil fuel phase-out: Development banks need to play a bigger role
A couple of months ago, COP28 called for the acceleration of efforts “towards the phase-down of unabated coal power”. Limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C requires stopping the construction of new coal power plants, that’s for sure. But it also requires retiring existing plants before the end of their lifetimes, which can be more challenging. Public development banks (PDBs) are well-positioned to help overcome barriers to coal phase-out and support countries with the transition to decarbonised electricity systems. A growing number of these banks are exploring strategies to accelerate the early retirement of coal plants. Yet these efforts may carry risks of unintended adverse impacts. -
07/03/2024
Climate Report
Financing Coal Phase-out: Public Development Banks’ Role in the Early Retirement of Coal Plants
Public development banks have the potential to facilitate the transition from coal to renewable alternatives in developing and emerging countries by fostering conditions conducive to the early retirement and repurposing of coal plants. Co-written with NewClimate Institute, this report highlights the challenges associated with the early retirement of coal plants and examines public development banks' role in collaborating with national governments and power producers to support coal phase-out. -
07/03/2024
Climate Report
Caution on Co-firing, Retrofitting, and Carbon Credits for Retirement: Considerations for Public Development Banks on Coal Phase-out Risks
With their historical role in funding coal capacity and public mandate, public development banks have a crucial role in enabling coal phase-out. Co-written with NewClimate Institute, this short paper explores many of the risks associated with proposals for abatement technologies and carbon credits as an input to current discussions on early coal retirement.
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30/10/2023
Blog post
Response to GFANZ APAC on financing the early retirement of coal-fired power plants
NewClimate Institute and the Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE) submitted a response to a public consultation on the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero’s proposed set of voluntary guidance for financing the early retirement of coal-fired power plants in Asia-Pacific. This blog post highlights key points from our submission. Preventing the worst impacts of the climate crisis, particularly for the most vulnerable, requires halting coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) in the pipeline and retiring a substantial portion of the existing global coal fleet before the end of their technical lifetime. While countries have committed to phase out unabated coal in the Glasgow Climate Pact, 350 GW of new capacity is proposed globally with an additional 192 GW under construction. -
31/08/2023
Blog post
Synergising Sustainable Development Goals Finance with Climate Finance
Sustainable development and climate change are two pressing and interconnected issues that countries have committed to address at the international level. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including climate action, at its core was adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 2015. The same year, the Paris Agreement was adopted by Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Both instruments have clear global and national targets in the medium- and long-term that are still far from being met. -
06/04/2023
Blog post
Ambition is the Key Missing Ingredient in the World Bank’s Paris Alignment Approach
After years of waiting, the World Bank finally approved and released its alignment approach with the mitigation and adaptation goals of the Paris Agreement. Presented by the World Bank as “the most comprehensive institutional undertaking ever done by the Bank Group to reconcile development and climate”, this alignment approach is an important step towards the reform of the World Bank currently under discussion. But this approach won’t be sufficient, argue Alice Pauthier and Sarah Bendahou in this blog post. It could be more ambitious. -
19/10/2022
Blog post
Net zero commitments need to prioritise impact
Over the past couple of years, the growing net zero commitments across financial institutions strengthened the focus on their portfolios’ greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, this focus does not guarantee emissions are truly reduced in the real economy. For that to happen, there is a pressing need for decarbonisation approaches focused on impact generation, with the appropriate indicators. According to Sarah Bendahou, Public development banks are in a unique position to adopt such approaches and indicators, paving the way for private financial institutions. -
28/06/2022
Climate Report
Long-term strategy use for Paris-aligned investments
This I4CE report focuses on the role of countries’ Long-Term Strategies (LTSs) in the Paris alignment approaches of Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). It explores the possible roles of both the LTS development process and the resulting LTS document in providing insights on the Paris alignment of investments within investment decision-making processes. The findings are relevant for a broader range of financial institutions.