Samuda to lobby COP30 for faster access to funds after climate disasters

 

Minister of Water, Environment and Climate Change, Matthew Samuda, says he will be calling for reforms to facilitate easier and greater access to funds needed after catastrophic events, such as Hurricane Melissa, at the UN's Climate Conference on Saturday.

 

The COP30 meeting opened in the Brazilian Amazon on Monday.

 

Some 50,000 delegates are gathered for the two-week meeting.

 

Mr. Samuda says his message will be direct as it relates to funding mechanisms after devastation caused by climate-related natural disasters.

 

"It cannot be business as usual in terms of the funding mechanisms that exist through the UNFCCC, meaning the time frame it takes to access the sort of funding that is available has to change. We will be calling for automatic triggers to be a part of the construct of the newly established loss and damage fund, meaning when a country goes through an event that is assessed through climate attribution models to have been caused by climate change, immediate payouts are indeed triggered," he explained.

 

Minister Samuda said small island developing states will need assistance to deal with the fallout from disasters because they do not have the economic capacity to adapt to the negative effects on their own. 

 

He was speaking Wednesday on Power Talk on Power 106 FM.