Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Amidst re­cent un­prece­dent­ed cli­mate events which have left nu­mer­ous coun­tries grap­pling with dev­as­tat­ing loss of life and eco­nom­ic blows, Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) are in­ten­si­fy­ing their call for a trans­for­ma­tive New Col­lec­tive Quan­ti­fied Fi­nance goal, the NC­QG, at COP29.

The Al­liance of Small Is­land States (AO­SIS) warns that ne­glect­ing the spe­cial cir­cum­stances of SIDS in the cur­rent cli­mate fi­nance dis­cus­sions jeop­ar­dis­es the sur­vival of the world’s most vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions. SIDS, who have long crit­i­cised the in­ef­fi­cien­cy of the pre­vi­ous USD 100 bil­lion cli­mate fi­nance tar­get, fear that COP29 could re­sult in an­oth­er fail­ure to ad­e­quate­ly ad­dress the cli­mate cri­sis.

“Achiev­ing the 1.5°C glob­al warm­ing lim­it is more than just a sur­vival is­sue for these na­tions—it is cru­cial for en­sur­ing a sus­tain­able fu­ture for every­one,” said AO­SIS chair, Am­bas­sador Fa­tu­mana­va Dr Pa’olelei Luteru.

“For our is­lands, a sig­nif­i­cant­ly am­bi­tious new cli­mate fi­nance goal, the NC­QG, is the key that un­locks the path to Keep 1.5 Alive, and de­liv­ers for mit­i­ga­tion, adap­ta­tion and loss and dam­age re­sponse.

“Ad­e­quate cli­mate fi­nance is es­sen­tial to achiev­ing the goals of the Paris Agree­ment and the UN Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UN­FC­CC). With­out it, the glob­al ef­fort to lim­it warm­ing to 1.5°C is at risk, along with the fu­ture of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment for all.”

SIDS are push­ing for cli­mate fi­nance that is new, ad­di­tion­al, pre­dictable, and ad­e­quate—crit­i­cal to ad­dress the evolv­ing needs of vul­ner­a­ble na­tions. The NC­QG must fa­cil­i­tate not on­ly mit­i­ga­tion of fur­ther warm­ing but al­so build re­silience to un­avoid­able cli­mate im­pacts and ad­dress the loss and dam­age al­ready caused by decades of glob­al emis­sions.

The pro­posed NC­QG should meet key cri­te­ria, in­clud­ing:

• Fi­nance that is new, ad­di­tion­al, and sep­a­rate from of­fi­cial de­vel­op­ment as­sis­tance (ODA) or oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al flows.

• Grants for adap­ta­tion and loss and dam­age, rather than loans or re­pur­posed funds.

• Min­i­mum al­lo­ca­tion floors for SIDS.

• With this amount set to in­crease as the cli­mate cri­sis deep­ens.

SIDS al­so call for pri­ori­tis­ing con­ces­sion­al fi­nance, es­pe­cial­ly for adap­ta­tion and loss and dam­age ef­forts, to pro­tect lives, liveli­hoods, and ecosys­tems in these vul­ner­a­ble re­gions.

“We are run­ning out of time in this crit­i­cal decade to halve emis­sions by 2030, and the stakes here at COP29 are in­cred­i­bly high,” not­ed Am­bas­sador Luteru.

“COP29 must re­in­force last year’s mo­men­tous agree­ment to tran­si­tion away from fos­sil fu­el, and con­tin­ue the mo­men­tum with a bold new cli­mate fi­nance deal that ben­e­fits us all. “COP29 must be a defin­ing mo­ment in mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism, se­cur­ing ac­tion­able so­lu­tions to de-es­ca­late the cli­mate threats en­dan­ger­ing our world.”