New climate finance goal urgent – government

MANILA, Philippines — To guarantee climate actions, setting a new climate finance goal should not be delayed especially among vulnerable economies, according to the Department of Finance (DOF).

In a recent high-level ministerial dialogue in Dubai, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno stressed the urgency of setting a new collective quantified goal (NCQG) on climate finance.

Diokno is part of the Philippine delegation in the ongoing 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 28) in Dubai.

At the COP 21 in 2015, it was agreed that before 2025, there will be an NCQG starting at a minimum of $100 billion per year, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries like the Philippines.

“The NCQG on climate finance should be established without further delays,” Diokno said.

“The clarity of this new goal will define the predictability of our climate actions. We must collectively commit to deliver real progress in setting up the NCQG in 2024,” he said.

He emphasized the need to ensure that the NCQG would sustain and enhance both the quality and quantity of climate finance.

As such, the Philippines recommends setting up a five-year timeframe to ensure coherence in the overall climate action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

To address implementation gaps in the provision of climate finance, Diokno argued that the quality of climate finance must be anchored on the principles of transparency, accessibility, predictability and efficiency.

“Transparency in climate finance can be enhanced by making goals science- and evidence-based, establishing the operational definition of climate finance, and stating the timeframes and commitments from climate finance providers,” Diokno said.

Quantity, on the other hand, must be scaled up by exhausting all possible financial resources.

“Climate finance must be demand-driven and priority-based to ensure that it is aligned with a country’s development pathways,” Diokno said.

This year, over 183 parties participated in the high-level ministerial dialogue on the NCQG on climate finance.

It was aimed at substantively advancing shared understanding of the goal and providing guidance on the direction of the ad hoc work program upon the establishment of the NCQG next year.