The Philippines and 19 other countries that comprise the Vulnerable Twenty, or V20, need at least $90 trillion in infrastructure investments by 2030 to address the pressing issue of climate change.
Finance Secretary Cesar Purisma, who chairs the V20, said in a letter addressed to developed countries the $90 trillion worth of infrastructure investments would be needed to prevent the global climate from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius.
The 2015 Paris Climate Conference, for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations, aims to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.
“Even at current global warming of less than one degree Celsius, we already suffer increasingly dangerous life-claiming storms, floods, drought and many other climate-related shocks. Warming of 2 degrees or more could call into question the very survival of a number of our low-lying island nations,” Purisima said in the letter.
“Our vulnerable nations are advocating instead for keeping warming to a minimum and support the more ambitious but still feasible target of below 1.5 degrees Celsius, itself requiring even more aggressive action,” Purisima said.
Purisima earlier mentioned several proposals to the developed countries during the Climate Ministerial Meeting in Lima, Peru. These proposals included carbon tax, airline tax/jet fuel tax and green bonds.
Purisima, on behalf of V20, also suggested a financial transaction tax, or domestic taxes on environmentally harmful products; the creation of a sovereign climate risk pooling mechanism; and improving access to climate finance by streamlining processes and supporting institutional readiness and administrative capabilities of developing countries.
“We are convinced that the V20 also has its role to play in helping to unlock the full potential of climate finance as we look to a new international partnership for moving our efforts forward,” Purisima said.
“In particular, we think steps can be taken to enable our economies to benefit from $20 billion in new and additional climate finance by 2020, drawing from international, regional and domestic sources, and leveraging maximum levels of private finance towards ambitious, 1.5 degrees Celsius-consistent climate actions,” he said.
Purisima also asked for the support of the COP21 in the development or improvement of financial accounting models and methodologies and cost-benefit analysis to enhance accounting of climate change costs and effects.
“We believe that if our poor and emerging climate-vulnerable countries are able to realize, through a new culture of international partnership, the rapid mobilization of unprecedented levels of climate finance from wide-ranging and innovative sources, then any country can,” Purisima said.