(Reuters) – The president of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) said yesterday he is “fairly hopeful” developed nations will meet a 14-year-old pledge to provide $100 billion annually to mitigate the impacts of climate change beginning this year.
But CDB President Hyginus Leon emphasized that good planning will be needed.
“It is unlikely any amount of funding in the first year will come close to the totality of funds needed to address loss and damage, but that’s a matter of sequencing,” said Hyginus Leon on the sidelines of a summit in Ottawa.
Some states have indicated that the pledge – initially targeted for 2020 – could be met this year, and this may be announced at November’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai.
Leon said he hoped this year’s summit might see action such as financial pledges toward a mitigation mechanism to provide “loss and damage” funding for developing countries hit hardest by climate change, which leaders committed to set up at COP27.
“The needs of the region are very, very large,” said Leon, calling for funding from public and private sources, as well as debt pauses for countries hit by economic or climate shocks.
“If your debt is high you don’t want to be making a choice between having to repay debt and making sure your people have food and water in the aftermath of a hurricane,” he said.
He noted many countries are in a “fairly perilous debt to GDP space.”
Pauses would allow countries to deploy funds for humanitarian needs without sinking themselves further into debt, he said.
The bank is also advocating new vulnerability-based measurements to better assess needs following shocks, Leon said, rather than traditional measures such as economic output which do not necessarily signify resilience.
The Barbados-based lender focuses on lending to poorer countries in the region and has 19 borrowing member-states across the Caribbean.