In Message to Vulnerable 20 Ministerial Dialogue, Deputy Secretary-General Urges Developed Countries to Deliver on Finance Priorities Combating Climate Change

(Delayed for technical reasons)

Following is the text of UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s video message to the Vulnerable 20 Ministerial Dialogue, in New York on 21 April:

The urgency of adapting to the consequences of climate change and the need to dramatically scale up financing for adaptation to support developing countries is painfully familiar to all of us present today.  Especially to you, as ministers.

That urgency is ever-present as you attempt to make impossible decisions between servicing debt or improving agricultural productivity, whose growth has slowed globally over the past 50 years because of climate change.  Or as you stretch your domestic budget to support populations exposed to acute food and water insecurity.

The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is unequivocal:  climate change today is causing severe, widespread, and increasingly irreversible impacts in all regions of the world.  And it is disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable.  

Make no mistake:  the damage is already deadly and costly.  I call on all actors to deliver on the four adaptation finance priorities of the Secretary-General:  first, developed countries need a road map by the twenty-seventh Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), showing how to deliver on the doubling of adaptation finance as agreed at the twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) and as a step toward achieving 50 per cent of climate finance allocated to adaptation.

Second, for multilateral development banks and development finance institutions: take concrete measures to ease access to finance for vulnerable countries, including middle-income countries, and announce concrete steps at the 2022 Group of 20 Summit at the latest.

Third, for developed countries, multilateral development banks, dedicated climate funds and private actors:  work jointly to accelerate turning adaptation priorities as identified in Nationally Determined Contributions or National Adaptation Plans into pipelines of investable projects for adaptation by COP27.

Finally, to all:  support the Secretary-General’s initiative tasked to the World Meteorological Organization to ensure 100 per cent coverage of early warning systems globally within five years.  I count on you to support the most vulnerable as we develop renewable, inclusive, and climate-resilient economies.  Thank you.