COP26 CVF Leaders’ Dialogue Statement by Pascal Girot, Hon. Senior Advisor on Climate Change, Cabinet of the Minister of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica

Climate Vulnerable Forum Leaders Dialogue COP26

4:15 – 6:15 pm 2 November 2021 – UNFCCC COP26, Glasgow, Scotland

Intervention of Mr. Pascal Girot

Hon. Senior Advisor on Climate Change, Cabinet of the Minister of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica

In representation of H.E. Andrea Meza, Hon. Minister of Environment of Costa Rica, 

Your Excellency Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, distinguished panelists, colleagues, 

I would like to remind everybody that Costa Rica was among one of the founding members of the CVF, thanks to the vision of our Ambassador Javier Diaz from the Foreign Ministry of Costa Rica, and much of the longstanding policy of Costa Rica has been based on human rights. Particularly today the issue of climate justice is at the heart of our policy position on climate change and much of our efforts pivot around the concept of climate justice and human rights across the world but in Costa Rica also. 

Costa Rica is not a small island developing state but it is a vulnerable country as are most of the rest of Central American countries in a region that has been hard hit by drought and recurrent extreme weather. We also have many vulnerable communities and we are conscious of the great challenges that we will face in the face of climate change. We have an adaptation policy and a longstanding policy on disaster risk management but we need funding. Part of the advances that the CVF has helped us achieve through the meeting of the V20 of the Finance Ministers of the member countries of the CVF. We have been able to have a clearer idea of what these costs are, these annual costs in terms of losses and damages that our countries continue to sustain in the face of climate change. In this sense we need to improve our work and deepen our work in terms of accounting, in terms of having an idea of what these accumulated costs are. A lot of what we call attribution science helps to have an idea of the risks that we are facing and how we can quantify them adequately. 

So basically the time is now we need to work together. The CVF has demonstrated the strength of working as a group and being able to strive to make sure that we can achieve our goals here at COP26. 

Thank you very much for your leadership Prime Minister and for inviting me to speak. 

COP26 CVF Leaders’ Dialogue Statement by Mr. Pascal Girot