Remarks by Dhruva Jaishankar, Executive Director of ORF America, on South-South Climate Finance Cooperation at the inauguration of the Climate Finance Center for the Global South in Belem do Para, Brazil, on July 9, 2024.
My thanks to the mayor of Belem, Edmilson Rodrigues, for his presence, and to Claudio Puty and to the organizers of today’s inauguration. I would also like to extend my congratulations to Douglas Alencar and the Climate Finance Center for the Global South. It is also heartening to see so many students in attendance, as they are the future and the issues being discussed and studied will matter more to them. I am grateful to be here, this being my first time in Brazil, and I have received a very warm welcome from so many of you in Belem.
I represent an Indian public policy institute based in the United States. As such, we are committed to finding policy solutions for North-South cooperation, whether on technology, financing, or climate solutions. Last year, under India’s presidency of the G20, we saw consensus brokered around a green climate pact, the reform of international institutions to enable greater financial resources for the energy transition, and at the summit itself in September in New Delhi the launch of a Global Biofuels Alliance. This year, under Brazil’s presidency, G20 delegates are here in Belem under the sustainable finance working group to reach consensus around vertical financing, just transitions, reporting (especially for small and medium enterprises), and nature-based solutions.
While these developments have been momentous and the negotiations underway are of critical importance, they are not nearly enough. This is why there is a need for a climate finance center for the Global South. In my mind, such a center can help investigate four big problems.
First, the Global South is bearing the brunt of today’s major environmental challenges. Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions are only one part of the problem. In addition, the world confronts the reality of rising sea levels, more severe tropical storms, eroding biodiversity, recurrent heatwaves, plastic pollution, and water scarcity. A holistic approach to environmental challenges is needed.
Second, agreements on climate have not delivered enough. There have been only vague commitments on net zero, including at successive COP meetings without the necessary accountability. When tangible commitments are taken into consideration, climate finance efforts have not reflected the scale and urgency of the challenge.
Third, in what in some ways is good news, the technology to facilitate a global energy transition is now available and plentiful. But the Global South is at the back of the queue, and will be among the last to benefit from breakthroughs in renewable and other clean energy technologies.
Fourth, adaptation has taken a back seat. We know that climate change is a reality, but sustainable cooling, disaster resilient infrastructure, early warning systems, drought resistant crops, and desalination efforts are among the adaptation technologies that have not received sufficient attention or financing from established players in the Global North.
But, we can still be hopeful, and the Climate Finance Center for the Global South, here in Belem, can offer two broad areas of solutions towards these ends. Firstly, the countries and regions of the Global South can – and indeed must – learn from each other. This can extend to financing solution in, say, Mexico or the experience with biofuels in Brazil, or for that matter the large-scale investments in green hydrogen in India. Moreover, the Global South can certainly cooperate more in building critical supply chains. Not all supply chained need lead north.
Secondly, a center focused on South-South cooperation can help to integrate economics, with politics and technology. Indeed, the COP30 to be held here in Belem next year and the G20 troika of India-Brazil-South Africa offer a unique opportunity to integrate those efforts towards workable solutions. There are, in other words, solutions for the South from the South.
In 17 months, the eyes of the world will be focused here on Belem – indeed on this very building – as world leaders try to broker global agreement on addressing the climate crisis. As friends of this city, and of Brazil, we in our small way will do what we can to make COP30 a meaningful success.
You can find coverage of the event here.