KUTSO CHAIRMAN AND COP31 BUSINESS FORUM CO-CHAIR ESİN GÜRAL ARGAT PRESENTS THREE PROPOSALS FOR SMEs IN NEW YORK

“CHAMBERS ARE THE KEY TO REACHING SMEs”

The COP31 Business Forum Advisory Council High-Level Roundtable Meeting was held in New York, with the participation of Minister Murat Kurum and COP31 CEO and Deputy Minister Fatma Varank. Esin Güral Argat, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Kütahya Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KUTSO) and Co-Chair of the COP31 Business Forum Working Group on Emerging Economies and SMEs, presented three proposals aimed at facilitating access to climate finance for SMEs in emerging markets.

The COP31 Business Forum Advisory Council High-Level Roundtable Meeting took place in New York as part of the ongoing engagements during New York Climate Week. The meeting was attended by Minister of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change Murat Kurum, COP31 CEO and Deputy Minister Fatma Varank, members of the Advisory Council and working group co-chairs. Discussions focused on the COP31 Presidency's Action Agenda.

Designed to translate climate ambitions into measurable and investable action, the Action Agenda comprises 10 priority themes built around the six pillars of the Global Climate Action Agenda, six global targets for 2035, 11 initiatives and 13 supporting deliverables.

Esin Güral Argat, Chairman of the Board of Directors of KUTSO, who serves as Co-Chair of the COP31 Business Forum Working Group on Emerging Economies and SMEs, addressed the meeting. The COP31 Business Forum is coordinating the business community's engagement through seven working groups in the lead-up to the COP31 Summit, which will be held in Antalya from 9 to 20 November under Türkiye's presidency.

“SMEs Are Not Struggling with Climate Targets, but with Access to Finance”

Commenting on her working group's role within the Action Agenda framework, Esin Güral Argat stated:

"The Presidency's Action Agenda is genuinely ambitious in its scope. By its very nature, our working group contributes to almost every theme within this framework. However, its most tangible contribution lies in the Climate Implementation Bridge.

"The Bridge's 2035 target is to expand the framework that will transform climate and development priorities into investment-ready project portfolios and connect these projects with appropriate sources of capital.

"I consider the following observation by Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, President of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye (TOBB) and Chairman of the COP31 Business Forum, particularly important: Governments sign agreements; businesses implement them.

"That is precisely our role here. SMEs in emerging markets are not encountering obstacles when setting their targets; they are encountering them when seeking finance."

“Untapped Financial Resources Are Not Necessarily Inaccessible”

Presenting three proposals developed through the working group's survey and initial round of consultations with its members, which the group has formally adopted, Güral Argat first emphasised the need to simplify access to climate finance for SMEs.

She explained that this could be achieved by streamlining application procedures and raising awareness of existing financial resources.

"A significant proportion of untapped financial resources remains unused not because they are inaccessible, but because businesses are either unaware of their existence or find the procedures for accessing them excessively complicated," she said.

Support Must Be Scaled Up and Funding Accelerated

Highlighting the vital role of chambers in supporting the transformation of SMEs, Güral Argat continued:

"Our second proposal is to scale up end-to-end climate advisory services and financial support for SMEs.

"Rather than establishing entirely new distribution channels, we should deliver AI-enabled, scalable technical assistance and financial instruments through existing channels that already reach SMEs on a large scale, namely chambers and major industrial buyers.

"Our third proposal is to accelerate the flow of concessional funding to emerging markets. Achieving this requires simplifying the procedures of international financial institutions, from initial commitments through to the disbursement of funds, and developing dedicated instruments for project preparation and technical capacity building."

“Finance Must Be Designed for SMEs from the Outset”

Emphasising that all three proposals are directly aligned with the Bridge priority established by the COP31 Presidency, Güral Argat concluded:

"This is not simply our own interpretation of the challenge. Numerous country representatives from different regions have identified virtually the same bottleneck in remarkably similar terms: the constraint lies not in setting targets, but in accessing finance.

"The fact that so many different voices are reaching the same conclusion demonstrates that we are dealing not with a sector-specific concern, but with a structural issue.

"As the Bridge moves from the conceptual stage to implementation, we want financing tailored to the needs and scale of SMEs to be embedded in its framework from the very outset, rather than incorporated as an afterthought.

"Our objective is to ensure that these three proposals translate into tangible outcomes in Antalya."

News: KUTSO Press Office