Parliamentary Accountability Summit at COP28

PRESS RELEASE
Parliamentary Accountability Summit at COP28
Monday, 4 December 2023
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

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The Parliamentary Accountability Summit brings together parliamentarians at COP28 to take stock of existing policy choices and processes to ensure enhanced political commitment for climate actions.

Dubai, 04 December 2023: The Climate Vulnerable Forum Global Parliamentary Group (CVF GPG), in collaboration with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the Global Renewables Congress (GRC), convened the Parliamentary Accountability Summit for parliamentarians at COP28. The Summit explored the role of parliamentarians and how parliaments can promote increased accountability to ensure that the decisions and policies in place at both the national and international levels are responsive to achieving the commitment to limit temperature increases to 1.5°C, ensuring implementation of the Sendai Framework to reduce existing risks and prevent the creation of new risks, and enhancing and scaling up adequate climate finance, including for adaptation.

The meeting opened with statements on the role of parliamentarians and how parliaments can promote and increase accountability in relation to the climate agenda. Speakers reflected on the importance of parliamentarians to enforce accountability as it is their responsibility to ensure safety of their respective consistencies and hold their respective governments into account. The significance of the Inter-Parliamentary Union was stressed as it provides a space for the Climate Vulnerable Forum to have parliamentarians address climate change. Speakers highlighted that parliamentarians must ensure budgets are made available and deployed to reach the beneficiaries, by representing their better constituencies and advocacy. The importance of parliamentarians campaigning for green budgets and climate policy was highlighted.

The second half of the Summit included experts from various backgrounds linking the role of parliamentarians with disaster and emergency response, loss and damage, adaptation finance, tripling renewable energy, and setting more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions considering historical emissions and the forecasting of emissions. One speaker highlighted the importance of bringing the climate agenda and the Sendai Framework to the core of parliaments. It was agreed that the Paris Agreement set a clear direction for this. Parliamentarians and other stakeholders must consolidate these goals into tangible and actional steps by sharing best practices and forging partnerships.

Following the open discussion, key elements of the Outcome Statement of the Parliamentary Accountability Summit were presented, which contains the key messaging from parliamentarians. The floor was then open to the audience where parliamentarians and members of government took the floor to express their views on the importance of collective advocacy at the national and global level. The meeting concluded with the adoption of the Outcome Statement of the Parliamentary Accountability Summit.

ENDS

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Click here to read the Outcome Statement of the Parliamentary Accountability Summit.