Accra-Kinshasa Communiqué of the Climate Vulnerable Forum

Adopted Version 

4 October 2022

We, Ministers and Senior Representatives of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, and the Pacific, and forming a significant number, and a representative group, of those countries most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change, meeting in-person and virtually, as convened from Accra, and in Kinshasa during the Pre-COP of UNFCCC COP27 in September and October 2022, 

Recalling the November 2021 Dhaka-Glasgow Declaration of the CVF, 

 

Gravely concerned by the findings of the 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whereby accelerating warming of the planet is now estimated to reach 1.5ºC by 2030, and that global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43% by 2030 and 84% by 2040 versus current (2019) levels to prevent warming from surpassing 1.5ºC, while impacts are set to expand alarmingly as temperatures rise with certain impacts, such as extreme heat spells, approximately doubling in frequency at 1.5ºC versus 1ºC,

 

Alarmed by the recent findings of the V20 Climate Vulnerable Economies’ Loss Report, which indicates that climate change of up to 1ºC has already eliminated one fifth of the wealth of the CVF and V20 in the last two decades and that the CVF and V20 member states would have been 20% wealthier today had it not been for climate change and the losses it incurred for poor and vulnerable economies,

 

Highlighting, moreover, the statement of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change at the conclusion of that mandate’s first country visit, to Bangladesh, whereby suffering of enormous loss and damage due to climate change events was in evidence together with a paradox that the costs of loss and damage must be met by the people who contribute least to greenhouse gas emissions,

 

Recognizing the urgent needs of the most vulnerable countries for keeping 1.5°C – a survival limit – alive, reaffirming the importance of delivery of international climate finance, the transfer of green and clean technology, and capacity building, which are crucial to enabling climate action by developing countries, and the need to ensure adequate attention to loss and damage, including to put an end to the lacuna of international funding for victims of the impact of climate change, as well as the urgency of accelerating adaptation including through stronger international climate finance, 

Recalling the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions and that the capacities of most vulnerable nations to respond to the climate crisis have been inhibited by the food and energy crises caused by the Ukraine and Russia conflict and the fallout and recovery to the COVID-19 pandemic, 

 

Moving unitedly, do resolve as follows:

 

OUR KEY PRIORITIES FOR COP27

 

We urged COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh to respond decisively to our following key priorities: 

• Loss & Damage: We call for the establishment of a dedicated international funding commitment and mechanisms to address climate change loss and damage by responsible – wealthy, capable and highly polluting – nations under the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement, including for a dedicated financing facility as a part of funding arrangements for addressing loss and damage. The Glasgow Dialogue on Loss and Damage must serve to deliver this objective with clear actions taken by COP27 rather than the Dialogue merely serving as a multi-year “talk shop”. We also call on the development and launch of a “Global Shield Against Climate and Disaster Risks”, as a successor to the InsuResilience Global Partnership, that rapidly increases loss and damage funding and financial protection for the most vulnerable, and contributes to the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the successful outcome of COP27.

We recognize those states and non-state actors that have pledged financial resources for addressing loss and damage of the most vulnerable and we encourage further such contributions to enhancing support and funding on loss and damage. We encourage the international community to also support and seek inspiration from CVF/V20 member efforts on addressing loss and damage, including the V20 Loss and Damage Funding program.

Furthermore, we urge for the integration of loss and damage as a distinct area for programs and funding of the Global Environment Facility, and for the commissioning by COP27 of an IPCC Special Report on Loss and Damage in order to strengthen international dialogue and knowledge on loss and damage due to climate change as an investment into refining future responses.

 

• Accelerated Adaptation Action: We call for a stand-alone “Implementation Plan” to improve transparency, predictability and accountability for achieving the crucial doubling of international adaptation finance by developed countries by 2025, as agreed at COP26.

We, furthermore, call for a significant strengthening of support to the Adaptation Fund and to grant-based financial support for adaptation efforts by most vulnerable nations.

In addition, the operationalization of the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) at COP27 needs to support the most vulnerable countries not only to survive but also to thrive. It should be informed by the work of the IPCC who should have a more active role in the GGA’s implementation. We should not target the bare minimum but aim to be transformational and move from vulnerability through resilience to prosperity. The GGA likewise needs to catalyze effective support in terms of capacity building, finance, and technology. 

 

• 1.5°C Ambition: We call on responsible countries, particularly major emitting nations, whose 2030 NDC emissions reductions are not aligned with the 1.5°C goal to review and strengthen these targets in 2022 as was agreed at COP26. The COP26-mandated “work programme to urgently scale up mitigation ambition and implementation” must ensure preparation of a robust COP27 decision that substantially strengthens the scale and pace of efforts to keep the 1.5°C goal alive. Furthermore, the first annual “high-level roundtable on pre-2030 ambition” must support the process of scaling up ambition for bolder action to close any gaps towards safeguarding the 1.5°C goal specifically in 2023 and also throughout this critical decade.

• Finance: The delivery of climate finance in the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG) should be needs based in terms of scale and volume, and responsive to the needs of the most vulnerable developing countries, including by not increasing indebtedness and through a high and growing emphasis on grant-based funding for adaptation for developing countries particularly vulnerable to climate change. Deliberations on the NCQG must scale up climate finance to developing countries and consider existing obligations of parties under the UNFCCC, lessons learned from the shortcomings of setting and fulfilling the $100 billion joint climate finance mobilization goal.

Climate finance  effectiveness has far to go, beyond a Delivery Plan for the $100 billion of annual balanced climate finance and too often the victims of climate change do not have access to financial resources. Access to climate finance should be streamlined and facilitated particularly for vulnerable developing countries.

 

FURTHER CLIMATE MEASURES

 

Climate action must happen beyond the UNFCCC to complement it and the Paris Agreement’s primary responsibility for arresting dangerous climate change, in which respect we particularly supported the following further key actions:

• Adaptation: Promote the implementation of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program and the establishment of similar ambitious adaptation programs in all vulnerable developing regions.

• Climate Information & Services: Promote the use and access of climate services for effective decision-making. 

• Climate Prosperity Plans: Develop national Climate Prosperity Plans (CPPs) and mobilize international financial and technical support for their implementation, working closely with the V20. 

 

• Culture: Expand the CVF cultural program into the domains of traditional communities, and the visual and entertainment arts. 

• Education, Gender & Youth: Promote all efforts to reinforce the critical importance of education, gender and youth in mobilizing climate actions for the protection of the world’s most vulnerable.

 

• Health: Promote the protection of public health from the impact of climate change, and understanding, and leveraging of health co-benefits of climate change mitigation. 

 

• Labour and Workforce: Protect workers and economic output from heat stress, leverage green jobs, and ensure an accelerated just transition. 

 

• Migration: Expand support for climate change migrants and displaced persons and leverage migrant communities’ contributions to climate action in support of CVF members, including through the CVF Migrants4Climate initiative.

 

• Parliaments: Support the full realization of the Charter of the CVF Global Parliamentary Group (GPG) and encourage all CVF member state parliaments to actively engage in the work and initiatives of the GPG.

 

• Renewable Energy: Strive to fully implement the CVF Vision 100% Renewable Energy target through a “just transition” approach towards environmentally sustainable livelihoods emphasizing to protect ecosystems and vulnerable countries.

 

OUR INITIATIVES

 

As part of our efforts to promote and drive ambitious climate action and mobilize international support for climate-threatened nations, we will continue to pursue our own Climate Prosperity Plans (CPPs) with support from a wide range of partner international organizations. CVF members are those most at risk but efforts of our members are also part of the solution to the climate crisis. Develop a catalogue of solutions drawn from country experiences and the CPP development process and leverage the CPP program as a platform of South-South exchange on the sharing of solutions and best practices.

 

We have likewise launched a “Capacity-Building Fellowship” and a “Youth Fellowship” in 2022. A collaboration of the CVF with the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the program aims to strengthen the capacity of fellows, as well as youth, and contribute to the development of national efforts to pursue the Forum’s strategic priorities on climate change in member countries and in international policy-making. We aim to expand our fellowship programs in future to encompass also our work in the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

We likewise look forward to the publication of the following CVF-commissioned research:

1. Climate Vulnerability Monitor, in its third edition and for the subsequent up-to-date maintenance of its online data platform, ensuring the most comprehensive possible global resource on the impact of the climate crisis;
2. Paris Goals NDC Alignment “Traffic Light” Assessment, with first results in 2022 and a more comprehensive global tracking to be available in 2023 in the run-up to the Global Stocktake;
3. Low Carbon Monitor, in its forthcoming second edition, to inform actions to leverage maximum socio-economic and environmental benefit from the green and low-carbon transition.

 

We called on support from organizations, governments and individuals for our 2022 online public campaign entitled “Payment Overdue” which aims to raise awareness and promote funding from highly polluting nations and the sharing of solutions to address the loss and damage caused by the climate crisis that already overwhelmingly afflicts developing countries particularly vulnerable such as CVF member states.

 

We support the Troika’s ongoing engagement on behalf of the Forum’s members in the V20 Joint Committee for multi-country financing initiatives, in order to promote effective mobilization of financial resources for CVF/V20 members’ climate action.

 

MEMBERSHIP

 

We confirmed the following nations as incoming members of our Forum: Chad, Côte d’Ivoire and Kyrgyzstan.

 

FORUM BUSINESS

We further elaborated on our own program of activities with the following steps:

 

1. Ghana has taken over the Presidency of this Forum following the successful second tenure of Bangladesh in this role as of May 2022 and for the ordinary two-year presidency period of 2022-24.
2. We expressed sincere appreciation for the work of Bangladesh and the Marshall Islands in the CVF Troika, as well as to outgoing troika member Ethiopia for their long service to the Forum.
3. We expressed thanks to the CVF Secretariat team, hosted at the Global Center on Adaptation, for their support to the Forum.
4. We welcomed and expressed thanks to the CVF Thematic Ambassadors for Ambition (Mohamed Nasheed), Culture (Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner), Parliaments (Loren Legarda), Renewable Energy (Tosi Mpanu Mpanu), Vulnerability (Saima Wazed), including the newly appointed CVF Thematic Ambassador for Youth (Nakeeyat Dramani Sam), for their efforts to advance and champion the causes and initiatives of the CVF.
5. We encouraged interested donors and members to consider strengthening the CVF & V20 Joint Multi-Donor Fund which finances the activities and priorities of the Forum through direct and indirect financial contributions.

 

Developed in Accra on 27 September 2022 and adopted in Kinshasa on 4 October 2022.

Member States of the CVF*

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Fiji, The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Kiribati, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Palau, Palestine**, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Senegal, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Viet Nam and Yemen.

 

*Prior to the adoption of the CVF Accra-Kinshasa Communiqué

**As a UN non-member observer state

 

Observer Governments and Partners: European Union, Germany, Micronesia, Panama, Paraguay, Togo, United States, United Nations, UNFCCC, and the Global Center on Adaptation.  

Reference Documents

• V20 Climate Vulnerable Economies’ Loss report;
• Statement at the conclusion of the country visit to Bangladesh by the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change;
• Concept Note on a Global Shield Against Climate and Disaster Risks.

CVF Accra-Kinshasa Communiqué (Final Version, EN)