GHANA STATEMENT
Petersberg Climate Dialogue 2022
17 – 19 July 2022
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Excellencies, esteemed guests, colleagues,
It is a great pleasure to see you all in person, ready to collaborate, coordinate and make a difference for our nations and the most vulnerable. We would like to thank Germany and Egypt for hosting this crucial global meeting in the run-up to COP27.
I believe that the Petersberg Climate Dialogue holds much potential to promote and catalyze practical action, helping to transform commitments and pledges into concrete contributions.
Ghana, as the current Climate Vulnerable Forum – the CVF – Chair, will continuously strive to advocate for the necessary action to safeguard those most vulnerable and least responsible for the climate emergency.
Excellencies,
Adaptation, loss and damage, 1.5ºC Ambition, and the urgent need to scale up accessible finance must be at the center of the outcome to COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh.
One of the main priorities for the CVF countries is funding for Loss and damage because the climate crisis is already upon us and we are least equipped to tackle it. The Glasgow Dialogue has produced some really insightful discussions that shouldn’t be wasted as it pursue its mandate for establishing funding arrangements for loss and damage. We acknowledge that support exists for averting and minimizing loss and damage. However, the real lacuna – and it is a major one – is dedicated funding to address loss and damage.
We hope that the V20’s own new funding program for addressing loss and damage can help inspire aspects of any ultimate global facility and the mandating of the various funds to have the mandate to address loss and damage. We will present initial results on its provision of climate-responsive international assistance directly into the most vulnerable communities at COP27.
We believe the proposed Global Shield against Climate Risks could be part of a tangible deliverable from COP27, provided that it is responsive to country needs, such as those articulated by the V20, and does encompass one or more facilities for funding efforts to address loss and damage in the most vulnerable countries. Given the massive protection gap that exists, any so-called shield would be a false promise if it lacked support to those who cannot possibly be protected in the near-term.
What is certain is that the Glasgow Dialogue does not forestall with talk-shop what it could help to propel in urgently-needed action. COP27 should decide not defer on funding arrangements, with future Dialogue sessions to focus on helping and fine-tuning their implementation.
What is more, the richness of discussion in the Dialogue in Bonn points to the need to invest more in knowledge. As does the findings of the V20’s report that the world’s most at-risk nations would be twice as wealthy today in the absence of climate change. That is why we have proposed for COP27 to mandate the IPCC to develop a Special Report on Loss and Damage. We were grateful to AILAC and the LDC Group for expressing their support behind this proposal in Bonn and we hope that everyone can see the relevance of such an endeavour, which could help to map solutions like financial protection as much as to clarify open scale and funding landscape questions.
An African COP must also be an “adaptation COP” given that, according to the IPCC, Africa is the continent most vulnerable to climate threats. Following the V20 Ministerial Dialogue in April 2022, we are therefore calling for a standalone “Implementation Plan” for how the crucial COP26 decision on doubling adaptation funding by 2025 will actually be implemented by developed nations. The value of the predictability and confidence dividends that this can provide our most vulnerable constituency should not be underestimated.
The Global Goal on Adaptation will, moreover, be crucial to rapidly scaling up and facilitating adaptation action at the global level. We need to secure its full substantiation and operationalization. We must also strive not for the low-bar of survival and protection, but for adaptation to be transformational and take our vulnerable nations further towards prosperity.
CVF and V20 nations are pursuing climate prosperity plans precisely to ensure our national development will be propelled by climate-smart strategies and we hope to present a number of these at COP27. The collaborative engagement of multilaterals and donors behind these plans is an opportunity to support our national ambition in areas such as climate adaptation, addressing loss and damage, as well as renewable energy, while strengthening our partnerships.
On ambition, practically no single major emitter has aligned its NDC targets with the Paris goals. This is a travesty that puts into question the very survival of the most vulnerable nations. This is especially concerning given the findings of the latest IPCC report that we could reach 1.5 degrees
of warming – our “survival limit” – as early as 2030. Every moment now counts in this critical decade.
The COP26 outcome called for revising and strengthening of 2030 mitigation targets in this current year. So we strongly urge the most capable and responsible nations to come to the COP, if not the pre-COP, with stronger targets. The CVF has commissioned our own initial assessment of Paris goal alignment which we will publish ahead of COP27. We also expect the first high-level roundtable on ambition and the mitigation work program must deliver real results at COP.
Excellencies,
The compounding impacts of the pandemic, climate change and the food and fuel crisis are causing a debt crisis across the most vulnerable economies. The service of public debt crowds out room for crucial investments that countries require in order to climate-proof their economies and establish a resilient, sustainable, and equitable recovery.
Debt relief is more than just a quick fix, it aims to empower governments to invest in strategic areas of development, including health, education, digitisation, cheap and sustainable energy, and climate-resilient infrastructure.
Governments receiving debt relief would develop their own Climate Prosperity Plans to map out the actions they will take to advance their development and climate goals.
Excellencies,
In closing, I must highlight our expectations on finance more broadly. The CVF is calling for a status update on the Delivery Plan enshrined in the COP26 outcome for full delivery on the annual $100 billion in climate finance delivery for the period 2020 through 2025. Regarding the new collective quantified goal on climate finance post-2025, it must adequately respond to the needs of the most vulnerable countries, learning from the experience of the as-yet-unfulfilled $100 billion goal. $100 billion is also a tragic “low-bar” and this discussion needs to get more serious as to the scale of funding that will actually be required to shift trillions upon trillions of dollars of investment in developing countries that need support to move from brown to green.
Ghana is fully committed to the success of COP27. We look forward to working closely with Egypt and the COP26 presidency, and with all parties, in the pursuit of a future where our people, prosperity and planet are protected.
I thank you.