Sec.-Gen.: CVF ready to contribute to achieving positive results at COP29

The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) is committed to working hard to achieve a good outcome at COP29, CVF secretary general, former President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed told PTI, Report informs referring to The Hindu.

Negotiations at the UN climate conference in Baku in November are expected to be "extremely challenging", Nasheed noted while emphasizing that an agreement on a new finance goal is central to breaking the political deadlock on climate action.

In an interview with PTI, Nasheed said Azerbaijan's resolve to negotiate commitments upwards at COP29 under its presidency will be tested.

The CVF is a group of developing countries highly vulnerable to climate change. It was founded in November 2009 in the Maldives' capital Male. The forum now comprises 68 countries representing 1.74 billion people.

Nasheed said climate finance is all about responsibility and not aid.

"It involves trillions of dollars, not billions, because the only way for us to truly fight climate change is to invest our way out of it," he said.

Resolving the debate on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, is central to overcoming the global political climate impasse, he said.

"Development banks must exponentially ratchet up the deployment of tools that can help drive down the cost of capital to sensible levels in our respective jurisdictions, thus helping drive up climate ambition and implementation," the CVF Secretary-General said.

The NCQG is the new amount that developed nations must mobilise annually starting in 2025 to support climate action in developing countries.

Nasheed said achieving consensus on the NCQG has become challenging as richer countries agree on the word 'goal' but quibble on the word 'quantified', just as they dither on the words 'collective' and 'new'.

He said it remains important to hold richer nations accountable for climate change.

"These nations seem to have unlimited resources to support wars and geopolitical objectives, yet they claim severe budget limitations when it comes to protecting the climate," Nasheed said.

"We look forward to the Baku talks just as we eagerly engaged the UAE leadership in COP28. Everyone has a role, and rather than just more talk, we need more sincerity and new ideas," he said, adding the CVF will do everything it can to help deliver a good outcome at COP29.

Nasheed also welcomed the idea of a climate damages tax on oil majors and the fossil fuel levy proposed by Azerbaijan. "But as specific as these notions are, they are still overly broad." Azerbaijan proposed a climate damages tax on oil majors and a fossil fuel levy in May. Some oil and gas-producing Gulf countries have resisted the proposal.