Climate vulnerable Forum: Deliver on climate finance commitments - Ofori-Atta to developed countries
The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has called on developed countries not to avoid scrutiny, but to rather work to rebuild trust with developing countries by delivering on their promised climate finance commitment.
He said climate change had eliminated 20 per cent of the wealth of the Climate Vulnerable Forum countries over the last two decades.
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Initial evidence, he said, showed that those countries would have been 20 per cent wealthier today had it not been for climate change and its effect on poor and vulnerable economies.
"The Delivery Plan Progress Report released by Canada and Germany exposes the disparities in developed countries’ climate finance efforts.
"Developed countries are still failing to meet their commitment to mobilise US$100 billion in climate finance annually for developing countries, a promise made over a decade ago that was meant to be fulfilled by 2020. The transparency in this report is a welcome effort but it is not enough," he said, adding that "at a time when developing countries urgently needed resources to build resilience, developed nations are escaping their obligations."
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Mr Ofori-Atta said this at the Fifth High-Level Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Finance at the COP27 at Sharm-El Sheikh in Egypt.
He said closing the gap was an important step to restoring trust in climate finance, adding that the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance must adequately be needs based in terms of scale and volume and must respond to the needs of the most vulnerable developing countries.
“The NCQG must also consider a high and growing emphasis on grant-based funding for adaptation for developing countries, particularly vulnerable to climate change with the NCQC to scale up climate finance to developing countries and consider existing obligations of parties under the UNFCCC, learning from the experience of the as yet unfulfilled $100 billion joint climate finance mobilisation goal,” he said.
Access to finance, Mr Ofori-Atta said should not be a barrier to taking climate action now.
