Regional Countries Attend IDB Forum on Climate Change

Officials from regional ministries of Economy and Finance are attending the Third High-level Dialogue of the Regional Climate Change Forum in San Pedro today and Saturday. Eighteen countries are represented at the event, during which they will approve the new work plan for 2024-2025 and oversee the transfer of the pro-tempore presidency from Chile’s Ministry of Finance to Colombia’s Ministry of Finance and Public Credit. It also aims to formally adopt a unified regional approach to sustainable finance among these participating ministries. News Five’s Marion Ali reports.

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

For the next day, representatives from eighteen countries from Latin America and the Caribbean are attending the IDB’s Third High-Level Dialogue of the Regional Climate Change forum in San Pedro. The event aims to bring to the fore issues that are relevant to the topic of climate change. Head of Belize’s delegation, Prime Minister John Briceño says there is urgent need for collective action against climate change.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“The collective development of a shared vision of sustainable finance among ministries of finance in the region. Establishment of the platform. As a globally recognized knowledge hub and the creation of an accountability mechanism by ministries of finance in Latin America and the Caribbean to monitor policy implementation. I believe it is safe to say That the work done on the regional level has certainly had a positive effect on the national efforts across our prospective countries Take Belize, for example.  We, too, have made significant contributions to international climate action through innovative measures.  We successfully implemented a homegrown investment grade blue bond transaction that mobilized private capital to restructure and reduce our national debt while financing marine conservation.”

 

Belize’s portfolio of ongoing climate projects is approximately sixty-seven million U.S. dollars. It includes sectors such as water, agriculture, fisheries, coastal zones and infrastructure. The IDB has supported a lot of the funding for these projects as IDB Executive Vice President, Jordan Schwartz indicated.

 

Jordan Shwartz, Executive Vice President, I.D.B

“We have joined you over recent years in expanding the tools available from multilaterals for addressing climate change, contingent credit facilities, sustainability linked bonds, debt for resilience. Or debt for nature swaps. Um, contractual clauses to suspend payments after crisis. Our CLIMA products at exchange. Ex ante commitments on mitigation to reduce payments, um, from the governments. And each of these instruments and more to come are critical to fighting climate. But I think it’s worth reiterating that innovation comes from our choices in which instruments to use when confronted with crisis. And when addressing cross border challenges such as climate change.”

 

Meanwhile, IDB’s Executive Director Frank Fazz-Metz said that each of these countries that is participating needs to become climate-change ready and resilient to brace for any eventuality caused by this new phenomenon.

 

Frank Fazz-Metz, Alternative Executive Director, I.D.B

“This decade up to  2030 is crucial for climate action.  And all countries need to enhance their efforts to achieve the turnaround in cutting global emissions by scale.  Today, many countries already are experiencing the consequences of climate change. I would just want to name our host, Belize, as one example, which was almost hit by hurricane barrel earlier this year. And we all know that the next hurricane can come anytime and hitting, uh, Belize.  All countries therefore must transform their economies to sustainability and to include climate change in our policy. Public finance and investments regulations have a crucial role to play in this transformation.”

 

Marion Ali for News Five.