Reps from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Kiribati, Madagascar, Maldives, Nepal, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Vietnam just gathered in Peru to announce the formation of the "Vulnerable 20" group, a coalition of 20 nations threatened by climate change.
The group's major inaugural activity will be formalizing accounting principles for expressing the economic losses from climate change, and then to establish a "risks fund" that will allow countries to insure each others' losses from climate events.
Finance Ministers decided to develop and apply innovative fiscal measures. They voiced support for an international financial transaction tax to aid the mobilization of additional resources for the fight against climate change. They also called for improved access to international climate change finance for adaptation and mitigation action, the fulfillment of the $100 billion commitment to the Green Climate Fund, and acceleration towards a 50:50 balance in resources mobilized given prevailing shortfalls for initiatives to adapt to climate change.
"This is not a typical group of major economies. Instead we represent countries put at high risk by the economic failures to address climate change," said Jose Francisco Pacheco, Vice Minister of Finance of Costa Rica, calling the event today in Lima "historic". "We have decided to work together to ensure we are not made victims, but do everything we can to contribute to a resolution to this crisis."
Dr. Atiur Rahman, Governor of the Bangladesh Bank, added: "We want to the world to know that we will not overlook the perils that our economies have been placed at due to the shortcomings, particularly of action by major economies. The world also needs to know that working together our vulnerable countries are doing everything in our power to bring the climate crisis under control, and we won't relent until we've succeeded in our ambition."
Vulnerable Twenty Group Founded
[V20]
(via Beyond the Beyond)
(Image: Geralt/Pixabay)