Sitharaman calls for collaboration of G20, COP forums on climate finance

PARIS:

India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held talks with UAE’s Minister of Industry & Advanced Technology and COP28 President-Designate HE Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, on the sidelines of Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris on June 23. Both Ministers exchanged views on synergising common efforts at G20 India and COP28 by prioritising concerns of the developing world in the global climate policy dialogue.

Ms. Sitharaman highlighted the need to collaborate both through G20 and COP forums in catalysing global action for ensuring availability of credible, predictable, and additional climate finance for developing countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron opened the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact in Paris that seeks to find financial solutions to the interlinked global goals of tackling poverty, curbing planet-heating emissions and protecting nature.

In his opening remarks, Macron told delegates that the world needs a “public finance shock” – a global push of innovation and financing – to fight these challenges, adding the current system was not well suited to address the world’s challenges.  “Policymakers and countries shouldn’t ever have to choose between reducing poverty and protecting the planet,” Macron said.

Ugandan climate campaigner Vanessa Nakate took the podium after Macron and asked the audience to take a minute of silence for people who are suffering from disasters. She criticised the fossil fuel industry, saying they promise development for poor communities but the energy goes elsewhere and the profits “lie in the pockets of those who are already extremely rich”.

Economies have been battered by successive crises in recent years, including COVID-19, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, spiking inflation, debt, and the spiralling cost of weather disasters intensified by global warming.