French President Emmanuel Macron told global leaders on Thursday that no country should have to choose between tackling poverty and tackling climate change at a summit tasked with -also in the world financial system.
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The Summit for a New Global Financial Pact is aimed at finding financial solutions to the interlinked global goals of tackling poverty, preventing global warming emissions and protecting the environment.
In his opening remarks, Macron told delegates that the world needs a “public fiscal shock” to overcome these challenges, adding that the current system is not suitable to meet the world’s challenges.
“Policy makers and countries do not 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, which included Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to observe a minute’s silence for people who suffering from calamities.
He criticized the fossil fuel industry, saying they promise development for poor communities but the energy goes elsewhere and the profits “end up in the pockets of the super rich”.
“It seems like a lot of money, so don’t tell us that we have to accept poisonous air and barren fields and poisoned water in order for us to have development,” he said.
Economies have been battered by a series of crises in recent years, including Covid-19, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rising inflation, debt, and the rising cost of weather disasters. intensified by global warming.
Leaders attending the summit included the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, who has been a powerful advocate for reimagining the role of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund during the climate crisis.
Kenyan President William Ruto “stresses the urgent need to move beyond additional measures that lack effective combating the climate crisis and fail to generate investment benefits for Africa”, his office said. .
Other participants included UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, IMF director Kristalina Georgieva and World Bank chief Ajay Banga.
Climate goals
France said the two-day summit would be a platform for ideas ahead of a cluster of major economic and climate meetings this year.
But observers are looking for tangible progress — including keeping promises that have already been made.
“We need to see some payments from richer countries and their development finance institutions,” said Alex Scott of think tank E3G.
One likely announcement is that a 2009 pledge to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance to poorer countries by 2020 will be delayed.
A second pledge to rechannel $100 billion in unused “special drawing rights” (SDRs) — the IMF’s tool to boost liquidity — is also on the table.
Yellen said the United States will use the summit to push creditors to provide aid and restructure the debts of developing countries.
“The international community must come together to support countries that are currently in crisis,” he said at a news conference.
China, a major global creditor, has been criticized for its lack of participation in multilateral efforts to ease the debt burden of developing countries.
The summit comes amid growing recognition of the scale of the financial challenges ahead.
Last year, a UN expert group said that developing and emerging economies excluding China should spend about $2.4 trillion annually on climate and development by 2030.
‘big leap’
Countries are calling for multilateral development banks to help unlock climate investments and significantly increase lending, while stressing that new debt arrangements should include, such as Barbados, disaster clauses that allow a country to stop paying for two years after a severe weather event.
Other ideas on the table include taxing fossil fuel revenues and financial transactions to raise climate funds.
The French presidency supports the idea of an international tax on carbon emissions from shipping, with the hope of a breakthrough at a meeting of the International Maritime Organization in July.
Observers are also eagerly awaiting details of a plan from South American countries to create a global structure for so-called debt-for-nature swaps.
After meetings in Germany last week, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said there were discussions with the United States, Germany and African countries about the idea.
Petro said this “could be humanity’s first giant leap to solve its biggest problem”.
Later on Thursday, Billie Eilish will perform at Global Citizen’s “Power Our Planet” concert, lending star appeal to a macroeconomic niche underserved by such a limelight.
(AFP)
