🎙️Hear @AvinashPersaud15 of Barbados deliver a compelling and constructive intervention on behalf of developing countries on Saturday morning, November 4th, following the latest draft decision text at the #TC5 #LossAndDamage meeting. Summary text: We all owe the TC co-chairs, Richard and Outi, a great debt. They shall forever be... welcome in Barbados when they need to revive and regain their sanity. We have all, across the aisle, worked hard for an outcome and clean text. We have recognised, understood and accommodated the challenges that individual countries and groups of countries face. - We have accepted that this process is not about compensation and liability. - We have accepted a World Bank FIF (interim) instead of a standalone Fund. - We have accepted convoluted safeguards on eligibility and allocation. But there comes a point when you retreat so far that nothing is left behind you. To accept this language on sources of funding would be to give credibility to a dangerous retreat of multilateralism that will unravel efforts on mitigation and adaptation. You can kiss goodbye to ambitious NDCs and NCQGs when we need them most. This would be less than nothing. We believe in substance over fossilised definitions, but let us be clear: developed countries, as defined in the Convention, account for 79% - nearly 80%. - of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere causing global warming. This has led to almost $200bn of loss and damage a year in the most vulnerable developing countries! For developed countries to accept no responsibility and to force us into a retreat to volunteerism from multilateralism will mean that this Fund will never seriously be of the size and importance to address the scale of the problem. In the spirit of global solidarity, we have sought the minimum we can live with, and without which we cannot agree to this text. The Governing instrument must have four things: 1. A recognition that what is agreed here is not prejudicial to what is being negotiated elsewhere in climate finance. 2. A recognition that developing countries are today bearing the bulk of loss and damage, and the purpose of this Fund is to support them. 3. A recognition of the scale of loss and damage that this Fund and Funding arrangements need to address. 4. A re-iteration of what was agreed at Glasgow: That developed country Parties, the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism, United Nations entities and intergovernmental organisations and other bilateral and multilateral institutions, including non-governmental organisations and private sources, are urged to provide enhanced and additional support for activities addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change. The Glasgow language was not a 'developing country text'. We felt it needed to be stronger, but we agreed to it. The idea that this language is irrelevant today because it was decided before a Fund existed beggars belief and all credibility. To say that binding, agreed, broad commitments made before a fund existed were necessarily greater than could be expected to stand after a fund is set up is illogical and questions and undermines the Glasgow Agreement. We accept Glasgow. Developed countries are rejecting it. These four things are necessary to accept the text here. It is less than nothing. Without these four minimum points, we would prefer to go to #COP28 to explain and argue our case. For further context read this:show more

Harjeet Singh (@harjeet11.bsky.social)

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