Financing for Development Forum

Side Event on

‘Climate Sensitive Approaches to Support Financing Sustainable Development

Thank you Chair Dr. Ahmed Kamaly. We congratulate Egypt for taking the lead and organizing this side event. We are happy to join this initiative. I thank the Her Excellency the Minister for her initial remarks that set the contours for today’s meeting. I also thank Special Envoy Amb. Mohieldin for his detailed briefing and as well as to my fellow panelists, Amb Nada Agizy; Mr. Zaheer from South Africa and UN Resident Coordinator Elena and DPR of Argentina Mr. Fabian.

Colleagues,

Climate change is a key global challenge, a consequence of increase in carbon stock in the atmosphere, much of which has been because of the past emissions by the developed countries.

However, despite the developing countries not being major emitters, they bear the brunt of climate change due to their lower coping abilities. We believe that developing countries, need their share in the atmospheric resource to enable them to address their developmental goals. This is widely recognized under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement in keeping with the well-established tenets of equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC).

Since the inception of multilateral negotiations on climate change, finance has played an important role as an enabling factor in ensuring collective efforts at addressing the global problem of climate change. However, it was only at Copenhagen in 2009 when a mobilization target of $30 billion for the period on 2010-2012, and long-term finance of a further $100 billion per year by 2020 by the developed countries was mooted.

Paris Agreement recognizes the pivotal role finance plays in climate actions and mandates the developed countries to provide financial resources to the developing countries to take climate actions in continuation of their obligations under the UNFCCC. The much-discussed commitment of developed countries to mobilize climate finance of US$ 100 billion per year by 2020 has been not met even in 2022 and doesn’t appear to be the case in the near future either.

Moreover, lack of an agreed operational definition for climate finance has resulted in uneven reporting by developed countries on their climate finance contributions under the UNFCCC. As per the decision of COP 26, Standing Committee of Finance of UNFCCC is working on definitions of climate finance, considering the submissions received from Parties on this matter. India’s submission urges for operational definition of “climate finance” that is fully consistent with the relevant provisions of the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement.

India had announced an ambitious NDC under the Paris Agreement and have been making steady progress towards those commitments. Further, Prime Minister of India announced ambitious targets for India based on five nectar elements, or Panchamrit, at the COP 26 in November last year that reflect the roadmap for India’s ambitious actions for a low carbon transition pathway. Climate finance and technology transfer continue being crucial to climate action by India. India expects developed countries to provide climate finance of $1 trillion at the earliest.

The mobilization goal of US$ 100 billion per year committed by developed countries is a much smaller amount in size in contrast to the actual needs assessed for developing countries. With the passage of time the requirement for the developing countries has increased, and currently, estimates for taking climate actions are laying out a case for trillions and not billions, in new and additional financing.

The availability of adequate, credible and predictable, new and additional climate finance for the developing countries holds the key in the successful implementation of climate actions by the developing countries. The developed countries need to multiply their contribution especially through grant financing. The scope, scale and speed of climate finance has to increase considerably. The global action on climate change is contingent on the delivery of timely and adequate finance.

We hope deliberations like the one we are having today are able to push the developed countries to walk the talk on commitments. I thank you all for your kind attention.

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