Multilateral development banks need to be reformed to meet needs of developing economies, says President Cyril Ramaphosa
JOHANNESBURG
South Africa has asked developed economies to honor commitments made at United Nations climate summits, especially to poorer nations that are in greater need.
“We are gathered here for COP27 on an African continent that is experiencing the worsening effects of climate change,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said Tuesday while delivering his country’s statement at the conference hosted by Egypt.
Ramaphosa said Africa needs to build adaptive capacity, foster resilience and address loss and damage, as agreed by all at the Paris COP21 summit. But to achieve this, “Africa will need a predictable, appropriate and at-scale funding stream and technological support.”
“This places a great responsibility on developed economies to honor their commitments to those countries with the greatest need and that confront the greatest environmental, social and economic effects of climate change,” he said.
The South African leader further said that during last year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow, France, Germany, the UK, the US and the European Union offered support in the form of a Just Energy Transition Partnership.
South Africa entered into a partnership with the richer nations which would provide $8.5 billion to the country for a period of three to five years to help the country transition to a low-carbon economy.
“It is our hope that this partnership will offer a ground-breaking approach to funding by developed countries for the ambitious but necessary mitigation and adaptation goals of developing countries,” he said in his statement.
South Africa is currently the world’s most carbon-intensive electricity producer and is struggling with its ageing coal-fired power plants.
Ramaphosa said his country is fully committed to achieving the most ambitious end of the global mitigation range, saying they are already scaling up investment in renewable energy and are on course to retire several of their ageing coal-fired power plants by the end of 2030.
“Multilateral development banks need to be reformed to meet the needs of developing economies for sustainable development and climate resilience,” he said, adding that at present, multilateral support is out of reach of the majority of the world’s population due to lending policies that are risk averse and carry onerous costs and conditionalities.
“We need a clear roadmap to deliver on the Glasgow decision to double adaptation financing by 2025,” he said.
