As G7 leaders meet in Italy for the 50th annual G7 Summit, Islamic Relief joins NGOs and campaign groups around the world in an open letter demanding they deliver new climate financing:
To the G7:
We, the movements and people of the Global South and Global North, reiterate our urgent and long-standing demand for the G7 to deliver adequate, unconditional, new and additional, public, and non-debt-creating climate finance to developing countries. We remind the G7 that the payment of climate finance is an obligation based on their historical and continuing emissions, making them most responsible for climate change and its impacts. It is also a legally binding commitment under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
We refuse to accept the excuse that Global North countries do not have adequate public funds to deliver the trillions needed to meet their obligations. In 2022, G7 countries spent over $1 trillion funding war and conflict. From 2020 to 2021 alone, G7 countries committed a total of USD 316 billion to public subsidies for fossil fuels. It is well within the power of Global North governments to redirect these funds for development and climate finance and raise more by taxing their elites and corporations–many of whom are top global profiteers and polluters–to raise funds for climate finance.
We demand that the G7 prioritize discussions of climate finance at the upcoming 50th Summit. Last April in Turin, the G7 climate, energy and environment ministers called for “urgent and enhanced action at all levels across all sectors and all countries to achieve the transformation towards net-zero, circular, and nature positive economies.” But this call rings hollow without the provision of adequate climate finance by the G7.
The G7 must take immediate steps to deliver climate finance that is 1) public – private investments should not and cannot be a substitute for public finance which is vital for climate action; 2) adequate – based on the needs of developing countries; 3) free of conditionalities that infringe on the self-determination of developing countries; and 4) new and additional to other standing financial commitments of developed countries, such as official development assistance. The G7 must pay the trillions they owe in the form of grants, instead of loans that must be repaid with interest, as loans are contrary to the principle underlying this obligation.
Each moment of delay results in losses and damages that will cause immense human suffering and cost more money in the long term. The recent disastrous flooding in Dubai and southern Brazil remind us that the delivery of climate finance has never been more urgent. It is past time for the G7 to deliver the current pledges they have made under the UNFCCC. As the deadline for the new collective quantified goal approaches, it is now time for the G7 to increase their pledges and deliver an amount far greater than their failed promise of $100 billion a year.
