The hallways at COP are crawling with big private investors who are ready to open their wallets to solve the climate crisis.

And there are plenty of folks trying to get their attention -- among those, 13-year-old Litha Maqungo of Capetown, South Africa.

"Climate change will bring too much pain and suffering with droughts, famines and floods," Maqungo, speaking in a slow, powerful voice, told a group of 100 investors at a dinner last night. "In Africa, fertile land is already turning to desert. By 2020, climate change is predicted to reduce some Africa farming harvests by 50 percent, which is 50 percent too much."

Powerful stuff, for sure, but Maqungo did not leave the room any richer. In fact, judging from the discussions in hallways, Africa seems the last place private investors want to risk putting their money.

This harsh reality touches on the vast challenges COP negotiators face in channeling the power of private investment to the colossal climate challenge.

We know that trillions of dollars of investment is needed to help create a low-carbon global economy in the coming 20 years. We also know that 80 to 90 percent of those investments will need to come from institutional investors, pension funds, hedge funds and other private investors with the deepest pockets.

So why is so much of this money sitting on the sidelines, especially when it comes to Africa, which is so much on the receiving end of a changing climate's worst impacts?

A few of the key stumbling blocks surfaced today at a panel discussion, "Leveraging Private Climate Mechanisms through Public Mechanisms."

* Weak carbon policies: Strong national and international policies that limit and put a price on carbon emissions are desperately needed. Without such policies, investors will keep investing in higher-carbon markets such as oil, gas and coal. "The market doesn't make judgments on what markets ought to look like. That's up the policymakers," said James Cameron, vice chairman of U.K.-based Climate Change Capital. Cameron noted that while his group has $1.6 billion invested in low-carbon ventures, "high carbon investments are still very attractive."