Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Our world is witnessing the escalating impacts of the climate crisis – global warming, devastating wildfires, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events continue to affect us, especially the most vulnerable. This year is on track to be the hottest year on record. And many of us here have already experienced extreme weather events, at a scale we have never witnessed before, at our homes. Fierce hurricanes are making devastating paths in the Atlantic, as we speak.
For the Commonwealth, a diverse family of nations, the stakes are particularly high. Many of us are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change.
This calls for a unified response to safeguard our future.
As we approach COP29 in Azerbaijan, let us unite within the Commonwealth. As many countries struggle to meet the commitments under the Paris Agreement, it is essential to mobilise predictable, adequate and sustainable climate finance to support ambitious climate action. Our resounding call for this COP is clear, to agree and conclude on a new collective quantified goal on climate finance.
We need a new collective quantified goal on climate finance that exceeds the previously agreed 100 billion dollars per year. A goal which includes essential sub-goals for loss and damage response, mitigation, and adaptation. And a goal which considers the needs of developing countries, including the special circumstances of SIDS. These goals should go hand in hand, with the required changes in the international financial architecture, which does not adequately cater to our development needs.
Let us approach COP29 with ambition, but also a willingness to work together and bridge the gap. We cannot afford to leave COP29 without an agreed finance goal.
We know that finance is the lifeblood of effective climate action. Yet, many in the Commonwealth family still face significant barriers in accessing the necessary funds to combat climate change.
We must recognise and dismantle these barriers. This is an area in which the Commonwealth has provided support to the Maldives.
We have benefited greatly from the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub through the deployment of a Climate Finance Advisor. This initiative has strengthened our capacity to attract climate finance and will play a pivotal role in structuring our Climate Change Fund. We look forward to this continued assistance.
As we look beyond COP29, let us bring ambition to the submission of our new Nationally Determined Contributions, or our 3rd NDC, next year. We ask members of the Commonwealth family to formulate their NDCs, guided by the first global stocktake. This is our only chance to steer us back towards a 1.5-degree pathway.
Our own submission will focus on increasing our current ambition.
Friends and Colleagues.
Let us act decisively and collaboratively.
For future generations.
For people and planet.
Let us, in the Commonwealth, lead this charge.
I thank you.