As usual, Emmanuel Macron presented himself as a great defender of the fight against climate change, praising the action of France and the European Union (EU) in this battle. But his speech at the leaders’ summit of the 27e world conference on climate (COP27), Monday, November 7, in Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt), marked a shift, by insisting more on the issue of climate justice.
The President of the Republic has recognized that the irreversible damage caused by global warming affects more the most vulnerable countries, which are nevertheless the least responsible. He judged that this question of “loss and damage”, a crucial issue of the conference, is “a debate that is fair”. In order to get out of these injustices “became unsustainable”he called for a “concessional financing shock” (on preferential terms) and at a “deep reorganization of our solidarity mechanisms”.
Emmanuel Macron announced the launch, with the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, of a “group of high-level sages” who will have to make proposals by spring 2023 to find “innovative financial mechanisms” and reform the international financial system in the image of the World Bank and the IMF – a request that the head of the small Caribbean island has been carrying for a year. He took up the idea of debt suspension for countries hit by climate disaster.
“We are proposing yet another group”
“It’s positive, because we need countries with weight to carry out this systemic reform of financial institutions, reacts Lola Vallejo, the climate director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations. This responds to the demand from the South to make the climate finance pie bigger. »
Proposals which, however, did not convince the NGOs of the Climate Action Network. The creation of a think tank is “an incredible snub to vulnerable countriesslice Fanny Petitbon, of the NGO Care France. We are proposing yet another group, yet another dialogue, when we need a very short-term response to loss and damage. » Developing countries call for the creation of an additional financial mechanism, with new funds. But the solutions are known, she recalls, like taxes on fossil fuels or on “superprofits”, which the head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, for example, defends. Clément Sénéchal, of Greenpeace, fears that these proposals “paralyze” ongoing negotiations.
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