Guterres: COP27 takes important step to justice, but not enough
Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, Nov 20 (EFE).- United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, said Sunday the COP27 has taken “an important step toward climate justice” after approving the creation of a fund to finance losses and damage in developing countries “particularly vulnerable” to the effects of climate change, although he added that it is not enough.
“This COP has taken an important step towards justice. I welcome the decision to create a fund for loss and damage and to launch it in the next period,” Guterres said in a video message, adding that “it is clear that this won’t be enough.”
Nonetheless, he said he considered it “a much-needed political signal to rebuild broken trust.”
In a plenary session in Sharm el Sheikh, the venue for COP27 in Egypt, the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change gave the green light Sunday to the new financing mechanism for reparations in the states most affected by climate change.
The proposal, which still has many details to outline, supports the “mosaic solution” requested by the negotiating bloc of the European Union, among other countries, which advocated resorting to new financial instruments to help pay for the damage after extreme events related with the climate crisis, in addition to creating a new fund within the framework of the convention.
The fund, one of the sticking points in the climate negotiations, was approved by nearly 200 states at the closing session of COP27, where the Sharm el Sheikh Implementation Plan was also endorsed.
According to Guterres, who has been very critical since the start of the COP by saying the planet is on a highway to climate hell with its foot “on the accelerator,” he said during his speech that “clarity and a roadmap credible way to double adaptation funding.”
He called for “changing the business models of multilateral development banks and international financial institutions. They must accept more risks and systematically take advantage of private financing for developing countries at a reasonable cost.”
Guterres said in his speech that COP27 concludes “with a lot of homework and little time,” since the world is “halfway between the Paris Climate Agreement and the 2030 deadline.”
“We need everyone to get down to business to drive justice and ambition. This also includes ambition to end the suicidal war on nature that is fueling the climate crisis, driving species to extinction and destroying habitats and ecosystems,” he said. EFE
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