UNITED Kingdom will provide $F246,676 towards COP23 Pacific Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Hub which was launched by Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama in Bonn, Germany this week.
The initiative will assist Small Island Developing States to enhance and implement their NDC contributions under the Paris Agreement.
Through capacity building support and innovative financing mechanisms, the NDC Hub will enable SIDS to better integrate the Sustainable Development Goals with climate risk management and low carbon growth.
British High Commissioner to Fiji and the head of the South Pacific network, Melanie Hopkins said NDCs were the cornerstone of the Paris Agreement, and UK’s commitment to this regional initiative would play a significant role in helping some of the world’s most vulnerable states to access the support and strategic tools they need to become more resilient while meeting their carbon mitigation targets.
As a founding member of this global effort to enhance NDC implementation and ambition, the UK committed $F4.9m to the NDC partnership during COP22 and in collaboration with Germany, had begun developing the regional Pacific NDC Hub that would be linked to the NDC partnership.
“In the Pacific, NDCs have potential to play a greater role in guiding urgent ‘climate finance’ investment and are increasingly recognised as an important strategic framework for supporting resilience building activities and objectives alongside carbon mitigation,” Ms Hopkins said.
She said building resilience to the impacts of climate change was a crucial priority for vulnerable Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
“Many of the current nationally determined contributions submitted by Pacific SIDS focus on broad mitigation measures for their energy sectors but lack the strategic integration of adaptation and resilience building commitments across other sectors.
“The proposed Pacific-based facility will address these challenges and unlock opportunities through the following; providing technical support, mobilising resources to support NDC review and strategic design, support for monitoring and evaluation to track NDC progress, assist with broadening sector-based focuses, enhancing collaboration and best practice sharing across the region, and improving capacity to access private sector finance and green finance opportunities.”
