Small and vulnerable developing countries participating in global climate talks have expressed optimism that the Commonwealth will help them to access badly needed climate finance.
Small and vulnerable developing countries participating in global climate talks have expressed optimism that the Commonwealth’s “vigour and activism” will help them to access badly needed climate finance.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference, or COP22, in Morocco, concluded on Friday 18 November 2016. The summit saw national delegations and international agencies discuss practical measures to deliver on the historic 2015 Paris agreement on climate change.
During the conference, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland met heads of government and ministers responsible for climate change policy from Canada, Dominica, Guyana, India and Mauritius. She also met ministers from Bahamas, Pakistan, Malawi, Namibia, Tanzania and the United Kingdom, among other countries.
“The Paris agreement was truly historic in setting targets for limiting global temperatures and achieving net-zero emissions. However it remains unfinished business. Our goal now has to be to deliver on the ambition,” said Secretary-General Scotland.
“Although large sums have now been pledged to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, what we are hearing is that not enough funding is flowing to the countries who need it most urgently. That’s where the Commonwealth comes in and why we have established the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub.”
The Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, established with the support of the Government of Mauritius, will help countries to build capacity to apply for and unlock funding from global initiatives such as the Green Climate Fund. It was announced at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta in 2015 and became operational last month.
“We are reaching a stage where we have to reap the benefits of the historic climate change agreement in Paris,” said Tanzania’s Minister of State for the Environment, January Makamba. “We are very pleased that the Commonwealth is part of this process. We are seeing new vigour and activism with its leadership in mobilising financial resources for small countries and least developed countries to be able to access these resources.”
The Minister’s comments were echoed by national delegations from across the Commonwealth’s 52 member countries. The government representatives said they were encouraged by the Commonwealth Secretariat’s focus on delivering the Paris agreement, which aims to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.
Secretary-General Scotland said: “We met so many delegations who gave their wholehearted support to the Commonwealth’s agenda to address climate change in in an aggressive and action-packed way.
“The Commonwealth is a fulcrum of best practice and a dynamo which sparks enduring partnerships. We can also be a conduit for climate funding, to ensure it reaches those countries facing an existential threat from slow-motion disasters such as rising seas and desertification.”
In her address to the high level segment of COP22 on Thursday, Secretary-General Scotland urged the world to embrace “pioneering approaches” to climate change. She highlighted a Regenerative Development workshop organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat in collaboration with the Cloudburst Foundation, which brought together biologists, ecologists and oceanographers to look at innovative practical solutions.
“Our focus was on developing positive action for the living world to restore climate balance - including biomimicry, permaculture, ecological engineering, and circular economies,” the Secretary-General said. For more than thirty years, the Commonwealth has been advocating for action on climate change. This “longstanding focus bore fruit a year ago” when member governments agreed to support an ambitious Paris agreement at their Commonwealth heads of government summit in November 2015.
“Our member states – in their rich diversity – agreed to set ambition high, and paved the way for the Paris agreement,” the Secretary-General said.
In recent years, the Commonwealth Secretariat has launched a vulnerability-resilience index which measures the capacity of countries vulnerable to climate change to absorb external shocks such as extreme weather events, as well as economic crises.
Another Commonwealth initiative, multilateral debt swaps for climate action, will help to address the twin challenges of unsustainable debt and climate change. It involves an agreement between climate finance providers and debtor countries to reduce public debt in exchange for a commitment to finance local climate change projects.
.@PScotlandCSG: debt swaps for #climateaction = innovative way of dealing w/ twin problem of high debt & addressing #climatechange. #COP22 pic.twitter.com/jaG3RShjrq
— The Commonwealth (@commonwealthsec) November 18, 2016
Media Contact:
Will Henley
Senior Communications Officer
Commonwealth Secretariat
Email: [email protected]
