Accessing Climate Finance for Adaptation & Mitigation
It’s the final week of COP27 and the power brokers are now finalizing the negotiations going forward. High level ministerial meetings have been taking place and countries have been taking advantage of the opportunities being afforded to network and learn climate-smart practices and what’s best for their situation on the ground. While there have been discussions around mechanisms associated with Article Six of the Paris Agreement, readily accessing climate finance for adaptation and mitigation continues to be an issue. News Five’s Duane Moody spoke with members of the Belize delegation about tapping into available climate finance.
Duane Moody, Reporting
There were several side events and negotiations taking place at COP27 today and the Belize delegation has been making sure that Belize is at the forefront of the discussion when it comes to accessing climate finance for adaptation and mitigation efforts. Chief Executive Officer, Doctor Kenrick Williams and Minister of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management, Orlando Habet, attended meetings and made presentations with the Global Environment Facility and on Article Six and accessing climate finance.
Orlando Habet
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management
“Finance for mitigation measures, finance for adaptation, we are looking for finance of course now for loss and damage.”
Also on the ground as part of the Belize delegation is Executive Director of the Protected Areas Conservation Trust, Nayari Diaz-Perez. Many may not know, but PACT plays a critical role as an accredited entity for the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund. And so, it has helped with accessing climate financing, via these global climate fund facilities.
Nayari Diaz-Perez
Nayari Diaz-Perez, Executive Director, PACT
“For us as an accredited entity, we have the role of supporting the deployment of those resources at the country level. For Belize, we are currently the only national entity that has been so accredited and so our other equally important role is to support the government of Belize in deploying those resources at the country level and at the local level. So, for us it is very important for us to be here, listening in, following and participating in the discussions as much as possible because the decisions and the developments that happen at COP has a direct and indirect impact on the work that we do in that supporting role not just to the climate funds, but also to the government of Belize.”
The ease of access to climate funding for mitigation and adaptation – not to mention the recently added loss and damage component – is another issue that countries have been facing. Belize has been building its capacity to be able to access these funds.
Nayari Diaz-Perez
“The access to the financing by countries and how easy it is or it is not, is one of the very reasons why the climate funds have been working through the direct access by countries to the funds. And so that is the role that entities, like PACT, play when it comes to giving countries an easier process to access those funds instead of rather the traditional way where we go through multilateral organizations and international organizations to access those funds. One of the big discussions that have been happening is the creation of another mechanism for benefit of countries when it comes to loss and damages and the benefits that such a mechanism would bring to countries like Belize that are highly vulnerable and suffer the greater loss and damage from the climate change impact.”
Belize, through the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation program, better known as the REDD+, has been able to enhance its forest carbon stocks. This puts the country in a better position to access sources of climate finance.
Orlando Habet
“We have also as a country taken all the steps necessary to get our information and data ready so that whatever information we gathered from our forests through the REDD+ program to be able to register and verify those. We have taken some of those credits and emission reduction that have gone into our NDCs. But whatever is not available – whether for voluntary credits or REDD+ credits, we would like to see how we could monetize those so that we could get some financing. So there will be a registry process, we will see how we can put it on a platform; that platform would be able to market it and we will see how we could get the most out of every credit.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
