30 May 2013
SG Slade's Remarks at the Pacific Climate Change Financing Workshop
Introductory Remarks
Tuiloma Neroni Slade
Secretary General
Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat
Pacific Climate Change Financing Workshop
Thursday 30 May - Saturday 01 June, 2013
Tanoa Hotel, Nadi, Fiji
The Director, Climate Change Division, SPREP
Ambassadors/High Commissioners of the region
Representatives of CROP agencies
Senior Officials
Colleagues
Welcome
On behalf of the co-hosts of this workshop, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and
the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, I am honoured and very pleased to welcome you all here today. We appreciate your
taking time away from your busy schedules to discuss and develop ideas on climate change financing, the important focus
of this gathering.
If I may, I extend special words of welcome to the distinguished Permanent Representative and Ambassador of Samoa to the
United Nations, H.E. Ali’ioaiga Feturi Elisaia, who is, among other important offices he bears, the Alternate SIDS
representative on the Board of the Green Climate Fund, and to thank him sincerely for his outstanding efforts on behalf
of our region, indeed, of all SIDS regions, in the establishment of the Fund.
I want also to thank AusAID and USAID for their generosity in providing the resources for the holding of this workshop.
Similarly, to the many country and partner stakeholders which/who have contributed to this work over the years, many of
whom have agreed to be key resource persons throughout this climate change financing week, I extend warm appreciation
for your continued commitment and efforts. All this reflects a truly collaborative partnership approach to dealing with
an issue of considerable seriousness and urgency for our region: securing adequate and efficient resourcing for
effective responses to climate change.
Forum Leaders have given affirmation of the dangers of climate change – to the livelihoods, security and well-being of
the peoples of the Pacific – and have called for collective support from us all, and in particular from Ministers of the
Environment and Ministers of Economic affairs of the region, and of the Pacific Climate Change Roundtable, to strengthen
the abilities of Pacific island countries to effectively access and manage climate change financing.
While efforts in this area span at least the last decade or more, the Copenhagen Accord of 2009 has become the
significant turning point in highlighting climate change financing as an issue which warrants particular focus.
The financing pledges of Copenhagen, as we all know, specifically the 30 billion in fast start funding from 2010 to
2012, and up to 100 billion per annum by 2020, have excited interest and expectations from all stakeholders. They have
focused attention on: how effectively to harness and utilise these resources; how to ensure adequate resourcing to the
most vulnerable; the delivery of resources through modalities commensurate with absorptive capacities; and the
generation and sustainability of the necessary resources to meet raised expectations.
All questions validly posed; alas, none without a simple or straightforward answer or solution. Working as a region,
together with SPREP, member countries and other partners, we in the Forum Secretariat have sought to pool efforts to
coordinate a number of initiatives in response to Leaders requests and to address some of these questions.
Our gathering today is essentially the first focused climate change financing workshop designed to cover the array of
significant efforts undertaken to date and by way of addressing some of these questions. The workshop is aimed at
bringing participants up to date on this body of work and contextualising it within country specific circumstances –
where, ultimately, these questions can be most satisfactorily and effectively addressed.
Scene setting
In broad scope, Pacific island countries face a range of challenges, challenges of immediacy and of compounding
complexity. Their situation of exposure and vulnerability is widely and well acknowledged: smallness, isolation, acute
capacity limitation and inability to cope with global economic instabilities, the impacts of natural disasters and
climate change. It is a situation severely complicated and compounded by the mounting demands of modern and sustainable
development. These are the factors which combine to render risk management and planning and response efforts
particularly taxing and complex for Pacific island countries, as they are for their development partners.
Donor partners, on their part, having made significant pledges for addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation
needs are also facing demands from both recipient countries and their own tax payers to account for these pledges. The
global financial crisis and mounting implications of climate change impacts on their own countries are bringing overseas
aid allocations under significant scrutiny. As to be expected, tax payers want a clearer understanding of the benefits
of their investments.
In and around these demand and supply-side perspectives, lies a complex web of international and regional institutions
and national stakeholders: UN agencies, multilateral Banks, CROP organisations, civil society, etc. Some financing, some
implementing, and all with good intentions albeit demanding attention to their own arrangements to give clear direction
on where best to support country responses to climate change. By any measure this is not an environment of easy
coherence for Pacific island countries, donors or other stakeholders to operate in with any degree of certainty over a
sustainable timeframe. But we need to simplify this web as best we can, and work to align efforts as much as possible. I
believe we are all in agreement that fundamentally, our reference point of convergence should be based on country driven
identification of priorities and requests for support. Our hope is that this workshop might provide a step in the right
direction towards this goal.
Defining climate change finance
The lack of an internationally recognised definition of ‘climate change finance’ has added to the complexity of
effectively tracking, quantifing, planning for and managing climate change financing. Developing countries continue to
request that climate change finance is ‘new and additional’ to existing ODA pledges, reflective of the new and
additional challenges posed by climate change. Developed country parties to the UNFCCC have accounted for their climate
change finance commitments in different ways, some differentiating between new and additional climate change resources
and others not. This debate will no doubt continue to play out under the UNFCCC and global ODA discussions. Rather than
engaging in the discourse for the sake of debate, perhaps the more productive task at this workshop might be to look at
feasible options to maximise access to and utilisation of available resources for the benefit of countries of our
region.
For practical purposes, we have found that the most meaningful definition of what constitutes ‘climate change finance’
should be based on the country’s own climate change needs, and draw from all sources of funding available – be they
global, bilateral or domestic. Indeed, tracking the range of available resources through national systems will help
countries better decipher where different funding sources can support the national portfolio of climate change needs.
Ultimately, this will help to inform negotiations on the need for increased external finance sources, and/or where
domestic resources might be best leveraged.
Holistic approach to dealing with effective resourcing for climate change
Development challenges and climate change implications are intertwined, often coterminous, as are the resources and
efforts at country level to address them. An holistic approach to assess how best to effectively harness the necessary
resources and apply them in an integrated and sustainable way needs to be considered in country specific circumstances.
While many initiatives have been undertaken to address aspects of climate change financing, a core part of the
Secretariat’s response has been to develop a comprehensive assessment approach at country level to determine the
necessary options and steps to strengthen Pacific island countries’ ability to better harness and more effectively
utilise resources against their climate change needs. This approach has been developed through significant consultation
with member countries, development partners and other stakeholders and will be the focus of a considerable part of your
work over the next few days.
We have documented this assessment approach as the Pacific Climate Change Financing Assessment Framework. This framework
methodology covers six key dimensions of assessment: i) funding sources; ii) policies and plans; iii) institutions; iv)
public financial management and expenditure; v) human capacity; and vi) development effectiveness. Country specific
analysis across these key dimensions is designed to assess the feasibility of applicable options to strengthen targeted
access to funding sources through modalities of access and management arrangements commensurate with the needs and
capacities of respective countries and their own systems.
Desired outcomes
Our aim and hope is that this workshop and the following ADAPT meeting next Monday and Tuesday, will help to inform all
stakeholders of the key considerations required to deploy targeted efforts in climate change financing from all
stakeholders perspectives, and firmly guided by Pacific island country systems. It is a ‘work shop’, because it requires
considerable work from everyone to ensure you leave with tangible plans on a way forward, and with a good idea of
who/what is available and willing to support you and your respective countries in taking these efforts forward.
I wish you all success in your efforts, and look forward to the outcomes of this workshop and the ADAPT meeting. We will
use these outcomes to inform the Pacific Climate Change Roundtable, Economic Ministers, and Forum Leaders of the
progress we have collectively made in this important area of climate change financing, and the future direction for
countries of our region.
Thank you.
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