Accessing Climate Finance for Adaptation
The effects of climate change as explained by Minister Orlando Habet are real – we’ve been experiencing it. In some areas along the coast, land is washing way and entire families need to relocate. While there are several areas including agriculture, energy, oceans and forests that will also be discussed at the high level meetings, there is also that issue of finance. Climate finance as it is referred is a mechanism that allows for small developing countries to access money for adaptation. In the Paris Agreement, larger countries who emit high quantities of GHG agreed to provide up to one hundred billion dollars for climate finance. Minister for Climate Change, Orlando Habet says that COP26 will hold these persons to task.
Orlando Habet
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development, Climate Change & Disaster Risk Management
“Our mitigation actions don’t necessarily have to be as much as theirs – of course we will still do our share because we can see where we can reduce emissions. Our concern more is on the adaptation side because we have to do things that we will be able to adapt to the effects of climate change so we have to do things that will build resilience against the effects of climate change. So for COP26, we will be looking at mitigation because you have the large countries who made commitments and we need to see where they are with their commitments. We need to really look at adaptation because adaptation is expensive because let say we have coastal erosion – which we do have which are slow unset events. It is not like a hurricane or flood that comes and you see the effects right away, but we have seen the coastal erosion happening but has been happening for years. So we need to see how we can build resilience and try to mitigate some of that action. Is it replanting sea grass which might be expensive? Is it building an artificial reef? Is it restoring some of the reef that we have lost? It is out there, it is expensive. Inland, some of the restoration measures that we would have to do; also we have to do maybe reforestation of some of those degraded lands.”
