2023-06-23 03:13:42
Leaders from the North and the South will try on the last day of their summit on Friday in Paris to lay the foundations for an overhaul of the international financial architecture born following the Second World War, with the stated aim of eradicating both poverty and global warming.
After a first day on Thursday when southern countries exposed to the climate challenge such as Zambia and Senegal have reaped some financial gains from donor countries, the participants in the Summit, organized by the Elysée, meet on Friday for a photo of north-south family.
With the ambition of having laid new foundations for the next international meetings, in particular that of the G20 in Delhi or during the international climate negotiations at COP28 in Dubai in December, Friday’s meetings are also part of pressure from a protest in Paris calling for no more funding for fossil fuels.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg participated in a meeting on climate organized at the Chatelet theater in Paris, on the sidelines of the summit “for a new financial pact” in the face of global warming, Monday June 22, 2033 in Paris
AFP
Thursday evening, a big concert for the climate brought together on the Champs de Mars artists like Lenny Kravitz or Bille Eilish, as well as Brazilian President Lula.
“Those who really polluted the planet during the last 200 years are those who made the industrial revolution” launched the latter, applauded like a rockstar, “that’s why they have to pay the historic debt they have to the planet”.
“Our Common Humanity”
“The planet is not dying, we are killing it. And we know those who are killing it”, for her part launched Thursday evening the young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, also present in Paris, during a public chat with other activists, such as the Ecuadorian Helena Gualinga or the Ugandan Vanessa Nakate.
For his part Emmanuel Macron, organizer of the “Summit for a new financial pact” had called during the day for a “shock of public funding” in the face of climate change and poverty which undermine the development of southern countries.
General view of a working session on banks and finance at the Summit “for a new financial pact” in the face of global warming, in Paris on Thursday June 22, 2023
POOL/AFP
The goal: to release the billions of dollars essential for the energy transition and the adaptation of countries vulnerable to global warming, while changing the international financial structures born in the followingmath of the Second World War.
“We come to Paris to identify the common humanity we share and the absolute moral imperative to save our planet and make it livable,” said Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, whose island is threatened by rising water levels.
On Thursday, Zambia’s creditor countries, including China, finally agreed to restructure part of its debt. A group of rich countries and development banks have also pledged to mobilize 2.5 billion euros to help Senegal reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.
Shipping tax
The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, wanted to show that things had changed, announcing that the objective of reallocating to poor countries 100 billion dollars of special drawing rights (SDR), an asset of the International Monetary Fund that might be used for development and climate transition, had been reached.
The American special envoy for the climate John Kerry when he arrived at the Elysée Palace for a dinner, Thursday, May 22, 2023, on the sidelines of the Summit for a new financial pact “which brought together some forty heads of state and government as well as leaders of multilateral financial organizations
AFP
“It is the future of humanity that is being discussed here,” said Ms. Georgieva.
The idea of the summit had germinated in November during the COP27 climate negotiations in Egypt, in the wake of a plan presented by Mia Mottley. The objective of the summit is to urgently renovate the international financial architecture, born of the Bretton Woods agreements in 1944 with the creation of the IMF and the World Bank.
Access to their financing is considered difficult by developing countries, while their needs are immense to face heat waves, droughts and floods, and to get out of poverty while freeing themselves from fossil fuels and preserving nature.
Among the many ideas under discussion, that of debt reduction once morest commitments to safeguard nature, or that of an international tax on carbon emissions from maritime transport.
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