High-Level Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Finance during COP 20 in Lima

Intervention by Shri Prakash Javadekar, Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change at the High-Level Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Finance during COP 20 in Lima

I commend the Government of Peru on the outstanding efforts to host this Conference and thank them for their warm hospitality. The fact that we have a high level dialogue on finance today points to the crucial importance that finance holds in moving forward on decisions on all other fronts in this COP – on adaptation, mitigation, technology, loss and damage for extreme events, and capacity building. On an optimistic note, I am glad to see some recent momentum building. We are glad to note that Parties have pledged to a total approaching US$10 billion in initial resources for the Climate Fund over the next few years. I need to bring to our attention, however, the fact that the size of public financial resources required is much, much bigger. Developing countries needs for mitigation and adaptation is being estimated in the range of USD 600 to 1500 billion a year. Mr. Chair, finance is a key enabler of ambition and action. If there is no clear roadmap in the provision of public resources by developed countries to provide new and additional financial resources approaching US$100 billion annually by 2020 and rising thereafter, then outcomes will be sub-optimal for a safer world. The need for Finance and technology support as a key element under the “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions” cannot be overstated. The range of actions is not limited to mitigation alone, but also to all other areas, including adaptation. Let me give an example. The Adaptation Fund is doing an excellent job. But it has already run out of money. Mr. Chair, one possibility is for the GCF to finance the Adaptation Fund as an implementing entity. This one decision could be crucial and I recommend this to jump-start implementation on adaptation as an outcome of Lima. We need such initiatives and successes. But the GCF as funded cannot do everything given its limited size: REDD+, loss and damage, and enormous financial and technology needs for mitigation. That is why the need of quickly moving to the goal of US$100 billion annually by 2020 is so crucial for everything we are discussing at Lima and in the run-up to 2015 COP. Let me also suggest another way of enhancing global climate finance. In India, we have recently announced plans to scale up our actions for clean air, water, rivers, energy and habitations. Investors from developed countries stand to gain by utilizing these commercial opportunities. This will be beyond the resources from the US$100 billion in global public climate finance by 2020 that I have talked about as a minimum for global efforts. My argument is that developed countries need to think much more innovatively to collectively tap their financial markets, their long-term pension funds and bond markets, reducing costs and risks, and bring this financing and join our national efforts, as in other developing countries. This cannot be a substitute for predictable public climate finances of a sufficient size, but is a complementary way. Mr. Chair, “an army marches on its stomach”. Global climate action rests on the shoulders of the means of implementation, especially on finance and technology. We need to address these issues urgently in the months ahead, well before 2015 COP, if we want to do much better.