2022 PARLIAMENTARY STATEMENT
CVF Global Parliamentary Group Dialogue
Kigali, Rwanda
11 October 2022
Version: Adopted
Prologue
The Climate Vulnerable Forum Global Parliamentary Group (CVF GPG) launched on 26 October 2021, marks a historic moment for us as parliamentarians, who are ideally positioned to ensure the effective implementation of past promises and ramping up global ambition for climate change.
This Parliamentary Statement issued at the first CVF GPG Annual Dialogue held on 11 October 2022 in Kigali, Rwanda, serves to provide the key messaging of the CVF GPG as a vital role player of global climate action, confirming the core priorities of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) at COP27 and committing to ensuring follow through on commitments made at both the national and international level.
The group of members of parliament of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) known as the CVF GPG, represents those countries most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change have come together to issue this renewed call to climate action.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) signifies that warming and the impacts of climate change are accelerating faster than previously realised. It signal’s that without major transition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the world will be way off the mark in achieving the goal of keeping global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius and protecting the most vulnerable nations from climate disasters. Contributing to the growing loss and damage experienced by our communities due to insufficient finance and adaptation responses.
If carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are not significantly reduced in the ensuing decades, the 1.5°C and 2°C global warming thresholds will be breached throughout the twenty-first century.¹ To effectively prevent and adapt to the increasing overall hazards brought on by human-induced global warming, governments must step up their climate ambition and implement specific policies in response. We are devoted to achieving that objective as members
of parliament.
The continuous burden arising from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic linked to the current crisis driven by conflict in Ukraine amidst a global climate emergency could cause major setbacks to our sustainable development and planetary prosperity.
Given the ongoing ineffectiveness of the current climate adaptation measures and the shortfalls in mitigation, ambition and finance that increasingly expose the most vulnerable to new threats, the adaptation and resilience agenda needs to take centre stage at COP27 alongside mitigation. In this context, we, the group of members of parliament of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), support the CVF priorities for COP27 and reiterate those key priorities as follows:
- In line with the COP26 agreement to pursue renewed efforts to limit temperature increases to 1.5°C, we call on our counterparts in major emitting nations, whose 2030 NDC emissions reductions are not aligned with the 1.5°C goal, to strongly encourage their review and to ensure that these targets comply with 1.5°C in 2022. As posited by the CVF we encourage that countries that are unable to align their NDCs to the 1.5°C goal through domestic action should make full use of the article 6 mechanisms of the Paris Agreement to ensure the 1.5°C goal is kept alive while enhancing finance, technology transfer, capacity building and global climate action through cooperation with developing countries particularly vulnerable to climate change.
- Despite contributing least to climate change, we throughout the CVF membership are the most affected. The Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) is a key component to the Paris Agreement’s directing the world towards improving adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change. At COP26 there was a response to the demands of the CVF on the balance in adaptation finance and the V20 Ministerial in April 2022 called for developed countries to come forward in 2022 with a standalone “Implementation Plan” for the realisation of the new pledge for a doubling in international finance for adaptation by 2025. We encourage the promotion of delivery and follow-through on the doubling pledge including in the form of an Implementation Plan. We therefore call for a standalone “Implementation Plan” to enhance transparency, predictability and accountability for the realisation of the COP26-agreed doubling in international finance for adaptation from developed countries by 2025; the full operationalization of the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) at COP27 needs to support the most vulnerable not only to survive but also to thrive.
- We recognise that our communities are at the forefront of the climate emergency, often bearing the brunt of constant climate incidents that diminish our capacity to allocate already scarce resources to critical economic and development strategies including health care services, education, energy access and job creation. We therefore reiterate the call of the CVF for the establishment of a dedicated international funding commitment and mechanism for climate change loss and damage by responsible nations under the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement; and for the expansion of international dialogue and the knowledge base on climate change attributable loss and damage through the commissioning by COP27 of an IPCC Special Report on Loss and Damage.
- The failure of developed countries to deliver on the annual $100 billion climate finance from 2009 to 2022 has had dire effects on the implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures. Meeting and exceeding the COP26 agreed Delivery Plan to make-up for shortcomings on the delivery of the annual $100 billion financing and the doubling of adaptation finance by 2025 would be crucial to the world’s economic well-being. We reiterate the notion that the delivery of climate finance in the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQC) should be needs based in terms of scale and volume, and responsive to the needs of 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. We call on developed countries to provide an update on the COP26 $100 billion Delivery Plan.
CVF GPG Activities
We welcome 7 new Parliaments as members of the CVF GPG following their governments’ confirmation of membership in the CVF in November 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow: Benin, Eswatini, Guinea, Guyana, Liberia, Nicaragua and Uganda. We likewise welcomed the confirmation of Ghana as the CVF president and V20 and CVF GPG Chair following theconclusion of the tenure of Bangladesh in May 2022. During the CVF High Level Meeting in Kinshasa on 04 October 2022, the CVF welcomed Côte d’Ivoire, Chad and Kyrgyzstan as new members. We welcome their membership of the CVF GPG.
We, as Parliamentarians of the CVF GPG, have the power to influence national climate policy and close significant gaps at the international, national, and local levels with alignment of the UNFCCC processes. Our Dialogue acknowledges that targeted legislation will enable nations to move forward with unique national policies that complement our global collective action. Therefore, in the face of a global crisis to climate change, we unite to explore opportunities that will help to drive Paris Agreement implementation, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction delivery, and planetary prosperity through Climate Prosperity Plans.
As a point of first departure the CVF GPG, prior to COP26, in collaboration with Globe commissioned the Mapping Report on Climate Change Laws and Policies in 48 Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) Countries. The report establishes the foundational elements to showcase parliamentary action through the framing and passing of climate legislation which legally mandates governments to meet specific ambitious climate targets. The CVF GPG continues to update this Report to ensure that it remains abreast of the latest legislative developments and to include an assessment of the newest membership of the CVF GPG.
As the CVF GPG continues to ramp up efforts to climate action through legislative action both within CVF member states and through international outreach to parliaments and parliamentarians worldwide. The CVF GPG, at this year’s IRENA legislator’s dialogue, actively engaged members of parliament in the G20 network calling on G7 and G20 member states to deliver on their commitments to upscale renewable energy to ensure the reduction of emissions. These efforts must be coupled with a clear target for renewable energy linked to tangible recommendations and a delivery plan for the provision of internationally agreed funding.
The CVF GPG supports the V20 initiative to provide technical support to V20 members to formulate Climate Prosperity Plans (CPPs) as investment strategies to support maximum ambition climate action to protect our economies while enhancing socio-economic outcomes and optimising our domestic renewable energy potential. To this end, the CVF GPG has and continuous to conduct legislative gaps analysis that impede the realisation of the CPP’s and to develop a Legislative Plan of Action on CPPs (LPAC) which will serve as the blueprint for legislators throughout the CVF network to permeate CPP’s in their core legislative functions and actions. The CVF GPG is committed to accelerating efforts to ensure a supportive financing and regulatory environment to deliver the planetary “Climate Prosperity” agenda and plans of the CVF, and to policy de-risking for climate action through measures such as creating more efficient permit and approvals processes, updating codes, enabling financing agreements, and promoting expertise, skills and awareness.
CVF GPG Commitments
The advent of the CVF GPG builds on the important work undertaken by the CVF to promote limiting global warming to 1.5ºC and for all – and especially the most responsible – nations to take actions to safeguard those most vulnerable to the consequences of the global crisis of the climate. We are committed to promoting the full realisation of the Charter of the CVF GPG and we aligned our work plan to the priorities of the CVF GPG as follows:We commit to supporting the active collaboration of members of parliament from any CVF member state legislative chamber and parliament friendship groups. Seeking to drive ambitious and effective climate action in-line with CVF goals and its cross-cutting “Climate Prosperity” agenda. To resolve the international impasse on addressing climate change, contextualization of international agreements into national legislation remains imperative. We commit to develop and support best practice and capacity-building programs to ensure coherence and cohesion in the national legislative responses to climate change that is in line with national climate goals and the Paris Agreement.
We commit to building our knowledge resources by commissioning analysis and studies by the CVF secretariat and key knowledge partners to better understand the legislative landscape of the CVF members, the status of legislation relevant to the CVF agenda. The CVF GPG Dialogue will commission research to develop a Legislative Plan of Action on CPPs (LPAC) which will serve as the blueprint for legislators throughout the CVF network to permeate CPPs in their core legislative functions and actions. The LPAC follows on the heels of ongoing legislative gaps analysis which aims to flag shortcomings in the regulatory framework that ought to be overcome to ensure maximum implementation of CVF/V20 national CPPs and the mobilisation of international financial and technical support towards their realisation.
We commit to developing a unified political “Manifesto” of CVF parliamentarians, building on our knowledge resources to ensure that climate change issues and concerns permeate the political commitments to our constituents at the local and national level.
We commit to continuing to engage in dialogue and collaborative actions with parliaments and parliamentarians from outside the member states of the CVF, to encourage ambitious climate responses and robust international partnership for action. We commit to reinforce our ties with our core partners to strengthen parliaments’ role in the development and implementation of national climate policies and Paris Agreement goals; and to assess the Sendai Framework on the progress made, to examine challenges experienced in preventing new and reducing existing disaster risks, and to explore context shifts and new and emerging issues on disaster risk reduction.
We commit to carrying the mantle of accountability, a core function of legislatures the world over, to assess the collective progress made to ensure that the purpose of the Paris Agreementis achieved. We will hold the very first Accountability Summit during the first quarter of 2023 building on three assessments: (1) To call to action countries whose NDC’s are not aligned with 1.5°C based on the Traffic Light System Report commissioned and developed by the CVF in 2022; (2) To assess any progress made towards the Climate Finance Delivery Plan and Implementation Plan for full delivery of the annual US$100 billion in climate finance enshrined in the CoP26 outcome and to call to action all Parties to ensure its delivery; (3) To assess progress and implementation towards the achievement of the seven global targets of the Sendai Framework and relevant disaster risk-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals and to account for the impact of the climate emergency.
We envision that the CVF GPG Champions Group will drive ambitious and effective climate action in-line with CVF goals and its cross-cutting “Climate Prosperity” agenda while serving as conduits between the constituent’s they represent, government officials and international institutions to ensure action on the commitments made towards climate change.
PARTNERSHIPS
– IPU as the leading intergovernmental organisation for parliament
– UNFCCC as the custodian of the Paris Agreement and the UN’s lead climate action body
– UNDRR as the lead UN agency for disaster risk reduction
– GCA as the principal global organisation dedicated to climate change adaptation
– IRENA brings leading global expertise on renewable energy
– Globe a network of parliamentarians dedicated to improving governance for sustainable
development
PRESIDENCY & THEMATIC AMBASSADORS
We express sincere appreciation for the leadership of Ghana as President of the CVF and to His Excellency President Nana Akufo-Addo, the President of Ghana and Chair of the CVF. We also welcome and express thanks for all the work of the five CVF Thematic Ambassadors for Ambition (Mohamed Nasheed), Culture (Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner), Parliaments (Loren Legarda), Renewable Energy (Tosi Mpanu Mpanu), and Vulnerability (Saima Wazed) to advance the causes and initiatives of the CVF GPG.
ABOUT
The Climate Vulnerable Forum Global Parliamentary Group (CVF GPG) was launched on 26 October 2021 to unlock the full potential of parliaments and parliamentary representatives of the world’s most climate threatened nations to cooperate South-South and contribute to advancing climate action. The CVF GPG complements and expands on a decade of work led by the executive arm of governments of the world’s most climate vulnerable nations through the CVF, itself founded in 2009. With the aim for parliamentarians from across the CVF member states to share ideas and experiences on legislative measures in support of ambitious and urgent climate action, the Group functions as a community of parliamentarians engaged to drive ambitious and effective climate action at home, abroad and globally.
