Climate finance takes centre stage at COP28 climate talks
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Now the former US Vice President and climate campaigner Al Gore has described the UAE's
00:05 role at the COP climate summit an abuse of public trust.
00:10 The UAE is hosting this year's event and its president is also the head of the country's
00:15 national oil company.
00:18 Now covering developments for us at the summit this week is France 24's Chloé Dumas.
00:23 She has more on what's ahead today.
00:27 So today the talks will be focused on finance and trade systems.
00:32 This is a crucial element at all climate conferences.
00:36 And essentially the dilemma is always the same.
00:39 How do we get rich countries to support poorer ones as they face the dire consequences of
00:45 global warming?
00:47 Now the encouraging thing this year at COP28 in Dubai is that since the beginning of the
00:52 talks on Friday, several countries and private donors have already committed large financial
01:01 contributions through multilateral funds like the Green Climate Fund or the Loss and Damage
01:08 Fund which has already gathered more than 650 million US dollars.
01:14 So in a way this is good news but we are still very, very far from the amounts needed to
01:21 truly tackle the issue.
01:23 According to industry experts, inaction on climate change could cost the global economy
01:28 over 170 trillion dollars by 2070.
01:34 Now the tricky part today will really be funding mechanisms because we've had these big announcements.
01:41 The question is once the money is pledged, how do we actually deploy it?
01:45 And one of the big concerns that we're hearing here from the participants, especially from
01:49 developing countries, is how much of it is going to be grants and how much of it is going
01:54 to be loans that will eventually increase developing countries' debt burden.