Vanuatu as PSIDS Chair represented at regional consultation on Climate Finance
The Acting Director of the Department of Climate Change, Nelson Kalo, represented the Ministry of Climate Change Adaptation (MoCCA) and Vanuatu this week in Fiji as Chair of the Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) to deliver the welcome address at the Regional Programmatic Approach, a consultation workshop on Climate Finance co-hosted by the Governments of Cook Islands and Palau.
The consultation for the Regional Programmatic Approach for Climate Action started on Monday this week and ends today (Thursday), which saw the participation by invitation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and The Pacific Community (SPC).
Vanuatu was represented at this meeting in Nadi by these MoCCA officers: Mr. Nelson Kalo, the Acting Director for the Department of Climate Change; Mrs. Julia Salerua the National Advisory Board’s (NAB) Project Development Officer; and Mrs. Florence Iautu the NAB’s Strategic Manager.
In his address as the PSIDS Chair, Mr Kalo acknowledged the co-chairs, Cook Islands and Palau for their efforts in pulling together the much-needed initiative to look to address the gaps in the way PSIDS members collectively try to deal with the greatest existential threat of climate change.
He also acknowledged the host of the meeting in Fiji, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), who stood behind PSIDS to provide financial support to bring participants together to discuss the critical issue of how Pacific island countries can work together more effectively to come up with a collective regional approach to climate action.
“Let me also thank SPREP and the other CROP agencies for their ongoing support in bringing us together on these issues and to assist us in working together to come up with outcomes that can benefit all of us.
“The timing of this initiative couldn’t be more appropriate as 2024 signals the year of the “Finance COP” where the world will come together later in the year in Baku, Azerbaijan to try to determine a New Collective Quantified Goal for Climate Finance (NCQG).
“It is becoming increasingly clear that without a significant global effort to exponentially increase financial support to meet the needs of developing countries to deliver on their mitigation and adaptation aspirations, our chances of meeting 1.5 degrees will disappear.
“So, this timely initiative -the RPACA - is an opportunity to bring our countries together to:
- look at the climate finance projects already underway in our region
- consider our financing priorities
- assess the financing gaps
- and to determine opportunities where we can work together more effectively with our regional agencies, partners and donors to ensure we can leverage the additional resources necessary to meet our climate needs.
“In doing so we will be undertaking critical work to deliver the step-change necessary to ensure the region can stay on track to meet our collective climate goals.
“And this unprecedented approach will hopefully provide an inspiration to the rest of the world for how countries can work together to deliver new, innovative approaches to funding critical climate financing priorities,” Mr Nelson Kalo stated in his capacity representing Vanuatu and the Ministry of Climate Change as Chair of PSIDS.
The PSIDS Chair is also expected to deliver a closing remark today as the consultation meeting in Fiji ends.