Page 10 - IB November 2023

THE LONG, HARD ROAD TO

CLIMATE FINANCE

Exposed and vulnerable. A sea goer in Vanuatu, one of the countries most at risk to the impacts of climate change and disasters. Photos: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat

By Richard Naidu as well as paying for the solutions they need to weather the
climate crisis.
It’s the classic Catch-22. Mafalda Duarte, Executive Director of the GCF,
Pacific and other small island developing states desperately acknowledges that the international financial system is not
need to access climate finance to survive the growing impacts really fit for purpose.
of climate change. That much is well known. And the money “When it comes to climate finance, we are in a situation
is available. right now where we have many more countries in that distress
Except that, bogged down by steep qualifying criteria that or risk of debt distress, which really challenged them in
asks big questions of limited domestic financial frameworks responding to the multiple crises, including climate, which
and institutional capacity, Pacific Island governments and they are already impacted disproportionately.”
specialists are grinding it out in a tough, behind-the-scenes In February 2023, the Secretary-General of the United
struggle to get to the very funds meant to help their people Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD),
survive. Rebeca Grynspan, said developing countries paid US$400
The world’s largest climate fund, the Green Climate Fund billion in debt servicing in 2021, more than twice the amount
(GCF), met in Germany in October to call for a second round they received in official development aid.
of pledges to supplement its financial portfolio of around “Foreign debts are therefore eating an ever-larger piece of
US$48 billion. In Germany, 25 countries pledged US$9.3 billion an ever-shrinking national resources pie,” said Grynspan. “As
over the next four years (2024-2027) to “support the paradigm inflation rises, natural disasters become more frequent and
shift towards low-emission and climate-resilient pathways, food and energy imports rise in price, countries need more,
enhancing the [climate] resilience of 900 million people.” not less, contingency planning assistance.”
In its first round of pledges, the GCF raised $12.8 billion.
The second round, from 2024 to 2027, has a target of Problems in the Pacific
US$100 billion. The depth and complexity of the problems surrounding
Speaking in Bonn, Cooks Islands Prime Minister, Mark Brown access to climate finance for the Pacific, among the most
said that the target of US$100 billion may seem like a large vulnerable regions to climate change, appear to be mounting
amount of money but in the context of global financing, it is exponentially.
modest, especially when viewed against the more than US$1 The Climate Finance Action Network (CFAN), which
trillion put into fossil fuel subsidies last year alone. was launched in 2021 with the support of the Canadian
Government, is active in 12 countries in the Pacific and five
Global architecture in the Caribbean—but the Pacific is where the Network got its
It is a well-established fact that developing countries are start.
paying a double premium for climate change—paying the price CFAN provides technical support to unlock and accelerate
for the impacts of carbon emissions of developed countries, climate finance by deploying highly trained, climate finance

10 Islands Business, November 2023