[ad_1]
PORT OF SPAIN: Speaking today at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government meeting in Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Chair-designate of COP28, said: With COP28 set to play a key role in coordinating support for climate action, old models must be challenged to ensure climate diplomacy delivers results for Caribbean nations.
“At COP28, the Caribbean region will play a key role in bringing countries together and contributing to a consensus-driven approach on each of the climate pillars,” Dr Al Jaber told delegates. “The Caribbean Community, with CARICOM as a unified voice, can help build support for an ambitious negotiating outcome and a transformative action agenda. Together, we can achieve a just energy transition with clean technologies without sacrificing energy security or national Prosperity.”
The COP28 chair-designate paid tribute to Prime Minister Mia Motley of Barbados for her work in driving climate finance reforms in fragile states of the Global South.
“As Prime Minister Motley said in Paris, the world must now increase the pace and scope of its climate challenge,” he said. “We need transformative progress, not incremental steps. If we want different outcomes, we need to challenge old ways of doing things.”
With just seven years left to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, “we need a shift in mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage and, of course, climate finance,” said Dr Al Jaber.
“We must fast-track a just and equitable energy transition that leaves no one behind, triple renewable energy capacity and double hydrogen production. We must protect nature, strengthen food and health systems and scale up adaptation.”
Achieving the latter, the president-elect said, would require “achieving global adaptation goals and doubling adaptation funding”. “Finance is the foundation of everything. Of course, it is critical for lost and damaged money and funding arrangements. This COP will continue to put finance and IFI (International Financial Institution) reform at the top of the international agenda.”
The president-elect said: “We need to keep up the pressure on donor countries to deliver on the $100 billion pledge made more than a decade ago. This must be done this year so we can address the broader systemic problems.”
“The current international financial architecture is not fit for purpose,” he said. “Climate finance is nowhere near available, accessible or affordable. Multilateral development banks are not providing enough concessional finance to reduce risk and attract more private capital and financing.”
“This has to change, and we need to involve everyone in the financial community, using all the tools at their disposal, to take a holistic approach to addressing global challenges,” concluded Dr Al Jaber.
[ad_2]
Source link