Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation (MEGJC) Hon. Daryl Vaz, is joining a Jamaican delegation headed by Prime Minister, The Most Hon. Andrew Holness to the United Nations General Assembly being convened by Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres.
The High-Level week will kick start with the much-anticipated Climate Action Summit to be held on September 23, 2019 at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York. The Summit, in which Jamaica is set to intervene as leader on the discussions surrounding climate finance, will also feature a series of high profile side events which will see Minister Vaz advocating for the increased and effective mobilization of public and private finance to support the adaptation and resilience needs of developing countries.
In addition, Minister Vaz who has responsibility for Land, Environment, Climate Change and Investment will be representing Jamaica in the third annual Bloomberg Global Business Forum, scheduled for September 25, which gathers the most important global leaders from the public and private sectors to address the threats from global warming to economic prosperity and examine the opportunities for solutions to protect global prosperity.
Minister Vaz will be advocating for greater flexibility and innovation in financial instruments, increased participation of the private sector, risks and opportunities to support cleaner and greener businesses and innovative solutions in investment.
Secretary-General Guterres is hosting the Summit to get the world on track to meet the headline goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement: to keep the average global temperature increase to well below 2°C, and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Heads of State and Government and their representatives have been tasked to go to the Summit with concrete action plans and not speeches. This includes plans for achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century.
Topics such as “Volume of Financial Resources”, “Provision of Technical Assistance”, and “Access to Finance”, have been crucial points of discussion for the “Climate Finance and Carbon Pricing Track” of the Climate Summit which Jamaica co-leads, along with France and Qatar, with South Korea, Senegal, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, and institutions such as the World Bank and the World Resources Institute also providing support.
Jamaica continues to advocate for developed countries to deliver on their commitment to mobilize US$100 billion per annum for climate investments in developing countries by 2020, in forums such as the 50th Meeting of the UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Bodies (SB50), which was held earlier this year in Bonn, Germany.
The Government of Jamaica also acknowledges the role that the private sector can play in building resilient infrastructure and is at the forefront of the call for additional technical assistance to help developing countries improve their enabling environments in order to attract additional flows of private investment.
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