Belize Meets with UNFCCC Exec Sec to Ensure Loss & Damage Fund is Established
The Belize delegation also had a bilateral meeting with the recently appointed Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Simon Stiell (Steel). The meeting was to address concerns from negotiators from AOSIS, CARICOM and Belize about the language surrounding loss and damage and to ensure that a fund is established for immediate access by countries severely impacted by climate change. Earlier today, the head of the delegation, Minister of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management, Orlando Habet shared with News Five several aspects of the closed-door session.
Orlando Habet
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development, Climate Change & Disaster Risk Management
“The establishment of that fund, the mechanism that will govern that fund, the modality of how it will be implemented and certainly, who if any will be the entity that will be created to oversee the fund, something like the GCF or the GEF. So there is concern in the language that is being currently used, it is not satisfactory to AOSIS, to CARICOM and to Belize and so we are trying to see how we can meet CARICOM ministers. We met yesterday as AOSIS ministers, or at least some, and hopefully we can meet as CARICOM ministers to discuss it and to see how we can have some more input. One strategy will be that we will have to meet with some of the other bigger countries who may be supportive or are supportive so that we can speak to them so that they can speak to those other bigger ones who possibly right now are not supportive. Certainly the language has to be appropriate because you can’t say that you are considering loss and damage. What we want to come out at this COP is that a fund will be established. Whether or not we will work on the mechanism after and all the modality and everything else governing the fund from now to COP28 is a different matter. But what we want is that it is in the language that a fund will be established.”
