Civil society call for ambitious climate finance commitments at COP31

The letter highlights the urgent need to scale up climate finance to address the escalating impacts of the climate crisis, which disproportionately affects low-income and marginalized communities and countries that have contributed least to global emissions.

The almost 150 signatories call on high-income country governments to announce or update their individual quantified, multi-year climate finance plans and commitments for the post-2025 period, ensuring that their contributions reflect their fair share of the global climate finance goal (NCQG). They also urge governments to prioritize grant-based public finance, particularly for adaptation, loss and damage, and for countries most vulnerable to climate impacts. In addition, the letter calls for substantial contributions to multilateral climate funds, including the Adaptation Fund, the Least Developed Countries Fund, the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, and the Green Climate Fund.

Recognizing that sufficient resources exist globally to address the climate crisis, the letter also advocates for supporting innovative and equitable sources of climate finance. These include taxes and levies on fossil fuel industry profits and pollution, on premium air travel and private jets, as well as on extreme wealth. Such measures would help mobilize new and additional funding while ensuring that those most responsible for the climate crisis contribute their fair share.

As COP31 approaches, the signatories stress that delivering on climate finance commitments is essential to rebuilding confidence in international climate cooperation and translating climate ambitions into concrete action. They call on high-income countries to step up in order to secure ambitious and equitable outcomes of COP31.

(ir/written with the help of AI)

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