France, Spain, Barbados and Sierra Leone were among those to back a new coalition on Thursday aiming to accelerate the flow of climate-related finance to the world’s poorest countries.
The “Power Our Planet: Act Today. Save Tomorrow” campaign led by non-profit group Global Citizen, said it was seeking to mobilize ordinary citizens to pressure leaders for a “seismic shift” in the way the world’s financial system works, to help developing countries fight climate change and poverty.
Co-chaired by the Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who has long championed reform of the global financial system that she has dubbed the Bridgetown Initiative, the coalition of developed and developing countries seeks “bold” action.
“We must call on all institutions, including the World Bank to release the funds necessary to help the world’s poorest countries to adapt, to transition, and to withstand the climate crisis, not tomorrow but now,” Mottley said in recorded remarks released by Reuters.
She called on leaders of wealthy countries to make good on delivering $16 billion of climate finance they promised as part of a past pledge to mobilize $100 billion a year, a key stumbling block at global climate talks.
That reform will be central to a conference Mottley and French President Emmanuel Macron will host in France on June 22-23 on a new global financial pact, which will tackle reform of multilateral development banks (MDB), the debt crisis, the creation of new international taxes and financing instruments, and special drawing rights.
