Belize Host First Ever National Climate Finance Forum

Belize just wrapped up its fourth National Climate Week, and this year’s theme was all about building resilience through inclusive policies. But the big highlight came today, the country’s first-ever National Climate Finance Forum. It’s a major step in figuring out how Belize can fund climate action and invest in a sustainable future. News Five’s Britney Gordon was there and brings us the details.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

For a country like Belize, rich in biodiversity and dependent on its preservation for economic stability, it is crucial that we invest in climate resilience. But that mission doesn’t come cheap. Access to climate financing remains one of the largest setbacks to tackling some of the country’s most pressing climate concerns. That is why today, as the finale to the Belize’s national climate week, the Ministry of Economic Transformation hosted the first-ever National Climate Finance Forum, under the theme Adaptation and Resilience. Minister of State for Finance, Christopher Coye tells us why this forum was held.

 

Christopher Coye, Minister of State, Ministry of Finance

“The intent and expectation is that as we look at building climate resiliency alongside economic resiliency. But we get that support from these development partners. The task is a humongous one. In terms of the financial gap. We’re talking over a billion dollars for us to meet our nationally determined contributions over the next ten years. So, for us it’s important to have that partnership with these types of bodies, but also with the private.”

 

The National Climate Finance Forum provides stakeholders with a valuable platform to connect with potential funders, strengthen partnerships, and explore opportunities to secure the financing needed to implement climate actions across the country. During the Twenty-seventh Annual Conference of Parties, world leaders designed the historic Loss and Damage Fund, meant to support vulnerable nations in desperate need to climate funding. Unfortunately, not much funding has been dispersed to these nations since it was created. Dr. Osmond Martinez, Minister of State in the Ministry of Economic Transformation, says this forum is step toward taking action over talk.

 

Dr. Osmond Martinez, Minister of State. Ministry of Economic Transformation

“It has been more a talk than action. Meanwhile, the people on the ground are suffering. And during my speech today, I gave an example of Monkey River for example, that once it was vibrant and thriving in town, Now  a lot of their family members are climate refugees and they have lost their homes that they knew as their home for generations. So how can the loss and damage fund now assist them, but also how do we move on not to adaptation because climate change is here and it won’t go anywhere, whether it’s in the agro-productive sector, infrastructure development, the tourism, or on our daily life. Climate change is going nowhere, but how can we move on into adaptation and how can we move on to access more climate finance.”

 

Across Belize, many communities are feeling the impact of climate change but have not been able to gather the resources to counteract it. In Punta Gorda, there is a steadfast mission ongoing to stop the erosion of the town’s shores. While members of the public have been rolling up their sleeves to reclaim the land, Punta Gorda Mayor, Carlos Galvez, is grateful for the opportunity to seek a better solution.

 

Carlos Galvez, Mayor, Punta Gorda

“Part of coming here is to engage with stakeholders. There’s a wide cross section of entities groups here. So, this is the perfect avenue to meet, and you get an audience, you ask for an audience and then, you share your issues, share your concerns, and then you try to see how best you could form a partnership and solve some of these problems. For me, that is one of the most important reason being here, to ensure that we engage with our partners and seek the necessary support from them.”

 

Attending the event were stakeholders such as the Green Climate Fund.  Recently the Fund engaged in a project with Belizean sugar cane farmers valued at over thirty-seven million dollars to support adaptation efforts. Coye details some of the other projects being discussed at the forum.

 

Christopher Coye

“One in the pipeline that we’re looking at is a municipalities project to support, for example, drainage in many of the coastal municipalities. So that’s an important player globally, but we think can be an important player for Belize. But we also have other parties like the World Bank and CDB as I mentioned in the case of the CDB, there is also an effort working with BEL to enable distributive generation. So that again, I think will be a very valuable introduction into our economy.”

 

Climate Week was created to raise awareness about the value of engaging in climate discussions and amplify the voices of women, Indigenous people, and youth in climate decision-making. Britney Gordon for News Five.