The launch of a 17-signature Ministerial Declaration of which Liberia is part of is calling for recognition of the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility as an existing Non-Market Approach ( NMA) under the Paris Agreement in New York, say ministers, unlock significant additional climate finance for adaptation to the impacts of climate change.
The declaration, made by some of the world’s most vulnerable nations to the impacts of climate change, follows recent commitments from COP27 hosts Egypt to make November’s climate conference an opportunity to focus on implementation rather than further negotiation of existing texts and agreements.
For Liberia, “LoCAL is not a parallel system or ‘bolted-on’ program and it uses national systems to ensure funds reach their destination– the communities dealing with climate change,” the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia said; adding that LoCAL comes with an agreed process of monitoring, reporting and verification.
The document, launched at the event ‘Making Paris Work for the People: Adaptation at scale in climate vulnerable nations’, is signed by some 17 ministers from LoCAL-participating countries and brings together a series of joint commitments to increase the total climate finance available to climate change vulnerable nations. Signatories represent countries dealing with some of the worst impacts of climate change but with limited resources to adapt
“Let’s work together at COP27 for the adoption of LoCAL as an existing Non-Market Approach to scale up and boost access to climate finance, as laid out in this Ministerial Declaration…With our joint cooperation, let’s work together to ensure that the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility is included in the outcome document from COP27 in Egypt. And ensure that this COP, the “Africa COP”, is a COP of solutions,” Prof. Wilson K. Tarpeh added.
The LoCAL Facility is a mechanism for channeling finance to local governments for locally led adaptation to the impacts of climate change and designed by the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) some ten years ago;
Today, some 32 countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Pacific are currently designing or implementing their adaptation actions with the LoCAL Facility, which has mobilised over US $125 million for adaptation to date.
The Ministerial Declaration, which is based on inter-governmental discussions held at a meeting of the 9th Annual LoCAL Board and Ministerial Meeting in May of this year, also includes a commitment from UNCDF to grow the LoCAL Facility to a US$ 500 million mechanism by 2027.
This ambitious target supersedes a previous goal of doubling the size of the facility within the same time frame after that goal look set to be met before the end of 2022.
LoCAL countries, Cambodia, The Gambia and Cote d’Ivoire have made submissions to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), formally requesting that LoCAL is recognized as an existing NMA and assists their country in the achievement of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
Kenya, though not a LoCAL country, made a similar submission, as did UNCDF in its capacity as a UN observer to UNFCCC meetings. And those submissions were presented at the Bonn Climate Change Conference in June 2022.
The event adds momentum to the Bonn submission with Ministers and high-level participants from Cambodia, Jamaica, Liberia and Niger, calling for NMA recognition to achieve increased adaptation finance for African nations, Small Island Developing Sates (SIDS) and LDCs.
Many speakers highlighted the fact that while their countries are feeling some of the most acute impacts of climate change, they, as pre-industrialised nations, have contributed the least to the carbon emissions driving the crisis.
