Transparency Needed to Drive Climate Action and Mobilize Finance

Minister Orlando Habet also delivered the keynote address with the Nigerian Minister of Environment, Mohammed Abdullahi, at an official side event at COP27, in Egypt, in the nighttime. The event, co-hosted by the Government of Nigeria, the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency and the Center for Clean Air Policy, addressed the role of transparency in driving climate action and finance.

Orlando Habet

Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development, Climate Change & Disaster Risk Management

“Transparency is an important aspect of climate finance, and we are glad to note that it has now been accepted widely by all the countries and stakeholders. Having clarity and transparency on climate finance is important for all the parties to ensure that we act urgently to implement climate action. Transparency mutually reinforces the climate finance-related decision-making capacities and mutual trusts which are important ingredients of collective climate action. Currently, Belize, especially the National Climate Change Office in my ministry is working in collaboration with the initiative for climate action transparency and the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub on climate finance and transparency issues. We expect to strengthen these collaborations further and provide leadership in transparency aspects. Finally, I would like to highlight that climate finance transparency is a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree phenomenon. We as developing countries must be ready to be transparent so that all stakeholders know our climate finance needs, how much we received, how we have used it and the gaps in climate finance. But it is also important that developed countries with historical responsibilities also step us with their transparency initiatives on delivering climate finance targets.”

The session also featured a panel discussion to address lessons learned in-country Senegal, South Africa, Kenya and Belize in arranging and implementing the Enhanced Transparency Framework to enable inclusive and transformational climate action, employing forward-looking and innovative approaches in assessing climate mitigation, adaption, loss and damage and mobilizing climate finance.