Climate Vulnerable Forum & V20 Launch ‘Payment Overdue’ Climate-related Loss & Damage Online Social Campaign in the run-up to UNFCCC COP27 in Egypt.
22 September 2022, ACCRA: The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) & V20 have launched “Payment Overdue”, an online social media campaign to confront the global injustice of the growing fallout of the planetary climate emergency that affects the world’s vulnerable and least responsible populations most of all. The #PaymentOverdue campaign highlights the absence of any internationally agreed financial support for communities that suffer Loss & Damage (L&D) due to the climate crisis, invites individuals and groups to show support for this cause, promotes information and the sharing of L&D solutions, and aims to raise funds for communities worst affected.
Speaking at the launch of the campaign, the CVF Presidency Special Envoy and Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Ghana, Hon. Henry Kokofu said:
“Payment is overdue for the loss and damage suffered by our most vulnerable and least responsible nations. We are first and foremost the victims of insufficient global action to keep warming below 1.5ºC, as enshrined in the Paris Agreement. Rich and responsible, polluting nations need to come forward with significant international support and finance and we expect the forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Sharm-al Sheikh, Egypt (COP27) to be a decisive moment when the global community acts on its responsibilities to protect those most exposed to this planetary crisis of the climate.” He added that “the most vulnerable nations are encouraging the public and any organization, group, or country to stand with us and to join in our ‘PaymentOverdue’ campaign. It’s time to settle the debt.”
Also commenting on the campaign launch, Dr. Saleemul Huq, Chair of the Expert Advisory Group of the CVF said:
“After decades of insufficient action from big, powerful, and wealthy nations whether on adaptation, mitigation, finance, capacity or technology, the unfortunate reality of today is that loss and damage have become the paramount issue for climate policy. Loss and damage
punishes above all the poor, the vulnerable, and those least responsible for – and least equipped to handle – the severe and mounting catastrophes brought about through the climate crisis” He added that ”I fully support this CVF and V20 campaign and I encourage you and your organizations to also get behind it and link up by encouraging individuals to sign their handraiser and to engage with it online including by using their digital toolkit.”
The Payment Overdue campaign also highlighted that:
- For poor and vulnerable nations across the globe, climate catastrophes are becoming a permanent reality. Communities on the front lines experience the increasing number of unprecedented and extreme weather events seen globally.
- But vulnerable countries have the fewest means to rebuild and rebound from climate disasters.
- The global climate emergency has reached a point where dedicated funding needs to be made available for the victims least responsible for the climate emergency, and least equipped to withstand it.
- As outlined in the recent V20’s Climate Vulnerable Loss Report, climate change has wiped out one-fifth of the 55 CVF and V20 countries’ overall wealth over the past two decades. The CVF and V20 would be 20% wealthier today had it not been for climate change and the losses poor and vulnerable countries have incurred.
- There is a need for the world’s richest and most polluting countries – in particular, G20 nations – to settle their debt and pay up for the loss and damage they are directly responsible for.
- With no international funds in place to support frontline communities, the CVF & V20 encourage the public to call out the biggest polluting nations to act by signing the Payment Overdue hand raiser and, subsequently, to contribute to the V20’s own new climate-related Loss & Damage funding program through a dedicated crowdfund, to be launched in late September.
- The CVF and V20’s campaign will run until the conclusion of UNFCCC COP27 in November 2022. The CVF and V20’s campaign will run until the conclusion of UNFCCC COP27 in November 2022.
For more information on the campaign and on how to engage, visit: thecvf.org/paymentoverdue/
ENDS
About the CVF & V20
The CVF is an international forum for countries most threatened by climate change. Founded in 2009, it is composed of 55 members across five regions including Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific, and represents some 1.4 billion people worldwide. The Forum is led by a rotating chair for an ordinary period of two years, with Bangladesh currently chairing for the second time for the period 2020-2022. The Vulnerable Twenty (V20) Group of Ministers of Finance of the Climate Vulnerable Forum is a dedicated cooperation initiative of economies systemically vulnerable to climate change. It was created in an effort to strengthen economic and financial responses to climate change. For more, visit:
https://www.thecvf.org/about/
https://www.v-20.org/about
CVF/V20 members
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, the 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, Samoa, Saint Lucia, Senegal, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Viet Nam, Yemen.
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