A new financial paradigm capable of better protecting the countries of the South against global warming and indebtedness will lead an international summit in Paris tomorrow and Friday, with leaders, directors of institutions and climate experts.
Host France presents the “Summit for a new global financial pact” as a laboratory of ideas, capable of gathering support and drawing a “road map” for other international events in the short and medium term.
On the table are ideas such as a tax on maritime trade, expanding the lending capacity of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and regional development banks, alleviating the debt of the most vulnerable countries and better mobilizing the private sector.
The objective is ambitious: to create financial muscle to combat three interconnected crises, such as the fight against poverty, the decarbonization of the economy and the protection of biodiversity, as formulated by the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
At the event, preceded on Wednesday by the annual meeting of the Paris Club, more than 80 countries will be represented -Russia is not among them because it was not invited-, and more than 40 heads of state and government are expected.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, and the Cuban, Miguel Díaz-Canel, will attend the summit, according to the organization.
The Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, the United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the Vice President of the Spanish government Nadia Calviño are also expected.
The meeting will take place in a context of distrust of the countries of the South, which complain that the nations of the North say they do not have money to help in the fight against climate change and poverty, but they do have money to support Ukraine or refloat banks americans.
“It is very good to talk about the international financial architecture, but we need deadlines, and at the moment we are not seeing them,” said Sara Jane Ahmed, financial adviser to the V20, a group of 58 vulnerable countries, which includes eleven Latin American nations and the Caribbean, including Colombia, Costa Rica and Honduras.
“If we start doing all this in the 2030s, it will be much more expensive and the solutions will be much more difficult,” he warned.
The V20 includes 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries, including Costa Rica, Colombia, Honduras and Nicaragua.
The needs are immense. A group of independent experts created at the initiative of the UN estimated that by 2030 developing countries, excluding China, should be investing more than two trillion dollars a year to respond to the climate crisis.
Maritime trade tax
More specifically, the French presidency wants to give “political momentum” to the idea of an international tax on carbon emissions from maritime trade, just days before a major meeting of the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
According to experts, this tax could contribute 20,000 million dollars per year.
The debates will address other initiatives, such as the idea of suspending debt payments in the event of a natural catastrophe, strongly defended by the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley.
Also on the table is the idea of an international tax on financial transactions, which has very few options to materialize.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), represented by its president Ilan Goldfajn, and other regional institutions will be invited to increase their lending capacity, after the World Bank announced that it will lend 50 billion more dollars over the next decade to countries that they need it.
The new president of the World Bank, Ajay Banga, will be in Paris, as will the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva.
Among the “toolbox” of possible solutions, there is precisely the idea of recycling 100,000 million dollars of special drawing rights, the reserve currency of the IMF.
ambition and reality
“The merit of an event of this type lies in putting many issues at the center of international conversations, and in taking them out of their niche,” said Louis-Nicolas Jandeaux of the NGO Oxfam.
However, Jandeaux stressed “the gap between the initial ambition and reality.”
Friederike Roder of Global Citizen, an international organization fighting extreme poverty, said an encouraging sign at the Paris event would be for rich countries to show they are capable of delivering on their promises.
Among them, that of contributing 100,000 million dollars a year to the most vulnerable countries to help them cut emissions and adapt to climate change, a figure that was announced for 2020 and could be met this year, three years late./AFP
FOR TWO days a financial pact will be discussed in France to financially help the countries most vulnerable to global warming./Photos WWF Spain and AFP