By Malgorzata Wasilewska
In July this 12 months, we noticed a defining second within the worldwide endeavor to handle local weather change and different urgent international points, as leaders of the European Union (EU) and the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) met in Brussels for the primary EU-CELAC Summit in eight years. Co-chaired by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (who presently holds the presidency of CELAC), the Summit marked the reinvigoration of a long-standing partnership and reaffirmed the basic want for unity within the face of the multifaceted challenges we face at present.
The summit was convened because the world continues to confront the impacts of the interrelated planetary crises of local weather change, biodiversity loss, and air pollution, which transcend borders and prolong past the capability of anybody nation to resolve. Within the face of this monumental problem, the partnership between the European Union, Latin America, and the Caribbean, grounded in shared values and mutual pursuits, emerges as a ray of hope and a drive for change of our collective future. Certainly, leaders of the EU and CELAC collectively acknowledge that collaboration as sovereign companions will not be merely advantageous, it’s an crucial for addressing the speedy and existential threats we face.
As we look forward to the United Nations Local weather Change Convention, COP28, to be held in Dubai later this 12 months, we discover ourselves on the cusp of a vital juncture. Certainly, eight years after the signing of the Paris Settlement, record-breaking summer season temperatures problem us to repeatedly mirror on our ever more and more formidable commitments to alter.
The Latin America and the Caribbean Local weather Week (LACCW 2023) scheduled for October 23-27 in Panama Metropolis will assist to set the stage for this newest COP Local weather Convention. LACCW 2023, which can run concurrently with the XXIII Assembly of the Discussion board of Ministers of Atmosphere of Latin America and the Caribbean, presents a useful platform for worldwide collaboration on local weather options, barrier-breaking improvements, and the pursuit of alternatives throughout numerous areas.
We will all agree on the utility of those conferences as platforms for centered dialogue, negotiation, and joint positions on key points amongst resolution makers. Nevertheless, there’s a rising sentiment amongst Latin America and Caribbean leaders, who’re aware of the dangers of inaction, on the urgency to translate this discuss into significant transformative motion on the bottom. For the Caribbean, the place the impacts and prices of local weather modifications are already seen and felt, the time for rhetoric has lengthy handed.
A solitary Tweet from St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves previous to COP27 in Egypt in 2022 summed up the area’s frustration: “If Caribbean leaders need to go to COP27 to inform tales of woe from Hurricanes Ian and Lisa, we’d as properly keep residence. Been there, executed that.” Caribbean leaders went to Egypt final 12 months hoping to see progress on loss and injury and adaptation finance. Finally, COP27 noticed the institution of a Loss and Injury Fund, which goals to offer finance help to nations most weak and impacted by local weather change. The EU position within the negotiations was instrumental to attain this end result lengthy awaited by Small Islands Creating States (SIDS) around the globe. Nevertheless, many know that success relies on how shortly this Fund will get off the bottom.
We acknowledge that within the face of those international local weather realities, it’s tempting to despair and to overlook the alternatives which will emerge from the collective discussions and renewed dedication to constructive actions. We’re due to this fact acutely conscious that the urgency of this problem necessitates a concerted response to staying inside a 1.5-degree rise in temperatures, advancing the shift to renewable power use, and supporting local weather motion.
We equally acknowledge the vital want for elevated local weather financing and enhanced entry to non-public investments has been a driving drive behind the EU’s engagement. LACCW 2023 offers an unparalleled alternative for policymakers, trade professionals, companies, and civil society to have interaction in information trade, thereby strengthening synergies and aligning stakeholders towards shared targets.
On this juncture, the EU’s World Gateway Funding Agenda (GGIA) for the Caribbean is a concrete and impressive contribution designed to confront these international challenges head-on. The GGIA highlights our dedication to extend inexperienced funding that addresses regional infrastructure wants whereas concurrently producing localized worth and fostering progress, employment, and social cohesion.
As well as, via Euroclima, our flagship programme within the area, we’re deeply dedicated to fostering more and more formidable, transformative, and equitable motion on local weather and environmental points significantly within the LAC area. In 2023, we launched Euroclima to the Caribbean, successfully increasing the programme’s assist to 33 governments within the LAC area. This partnership helps to foster the situations crucial for a inexperienced and simply transition. By catalyzing key initiatives in precedence sectors and facilitating inexperienced financing and investments, we’re setting the stage for profound change.
Our longstanding and regular relationship within the area has been solid via this work, our continued introspection on how one can meet the ever-increasing ambitions and our shared expertise within the midst of the local weather disaster. We’re due to this fact excited to deliver these and different instruments to the desk so as to add which means to the discussions and switch the discuss into tangible motion on the bottom with constructive impacts on folks in ways in which they’ll see and really feel.
Within the Phrases of Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley: ““If it issues sufficient, we will select to finish local weather change. Our solely limits are the boundaries to our creativeness. We obtain what we put our sources behind.”
As we sit up for the upcoming days of discussions in the course of the Latin America and Caribbean Local weather Week, we renew our dedication to an equitable transition to a sustainable and inexperienced future. We stay optimistic as we discuss and work with you to make sure that our mixed actions maintain tempo with our shared ambitions and guarantees to the area.
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