Development
Climate finance and loss and damage at UNGA 81
Raised by 68 of 223 speakers. Read verbatim UN transcript quotes and select a time to hear the speech.
Speeches that raised climate finance and loss and damage
Tuvalu · Day 4Feleti TeoNamely, firstly, it affirms the continuity of statehood and sovereignty despite sea level rise.
Secondly, it safeguards the permanence of maritime zones and rights established under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Thirdly, it recognizes and protects the rights, dignity, culture, identity, and heritage of affected people.
6passages
Solomon Islands · Day 4Matthew Cooper WaleMajor emitters must make deep emission cuts and transition away from fossil fuels.
Climate finance, including support for loss and damage, must be grant-based and channeled through our national budget systems.
Project-based financing of climate action is unsustainable and out of step with the scale of a crisis we did the least to cause.
5passages
Saint Lucia · Day 4Philip J. PierreIt is a direct threat to national security, economic stability, food and water security, and human survival.
While the world focuses on headline grabbing events like monster hurricanes, melting glaciers, and tidal waves, climate change is affecting Saint Lucia daily in small but significant ways, such as the unusual bouts of drought in the rainy season, unprecedented floods in the dry season, and stifling of our beaches and coastlines by sargassum.
Our people contribute little to these global emissions, Yet these events constantly set back our people's development and and livelihoods and demand that we find the resources to reverse the damage.
4passages
Saint Kitts and Nevis · Day 4Geoffrey HanleyStates must reduce emissions, strengthen adaptation, honor climate finance responsibilities, and cooperate with countries bearing consequences vastly disproportionate to their contribution to this crisis.
Mister President, those contributions, lease, must not pay the greatest price.
Our oceans must also move from promises to protection.
4passages
Marshall Islands · Day 4Hilda HeineAdapting is costly and takes time, even as we've seen schools destroyed by rising seas, saltwater poisoning our wells, and disease outbreaks linked to environmental change.
This injustice must be addressed.
Our communities deserve restitution.
3passages
Bahamas (the) · Day 4Philip Edward DavisLast year, the International Court of Justice made clear that the law is also certain.
That injustice is certain too.
The people who bear least responsibility are asked to adapt first, pay more, and recover from disasters they did not cause.
3passages
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines · Day 4Godwin Fridayand set a country back.
Small states cannot continue borrowing merely to replace what climate-related disasters repeatedly destroy.
We cannot continue to walk up the down escalator pretending it is development.
3passages
Tonga · Day 4Lord FakafanuaThe Pacific loses an estimated of $500 million every year due to natural disasters such as cyclones, flooding, Early warning systems give communities time to prepare and reduce these losses.
That may be a modest sum in global terms, but for Pacific nations, it is a heavy toll on our countries and our people.
And yet the financing to prevent such losses still falls short.
3passages
Samoa · Day 4Mulipola Anarosa Ale MoliooAs the ICJ advisory opinion puts it, climate change is not merely an environmental concern, but an existential problem of planetary proportion that require urgent global action.
The United Nations General Assembly welcome the unanimous ICJ advisory opinion and affirm its importance as an authoritative contribution to the clarification of existing international law.
Climate finance is the bridge between ambition and action.
3passages
Kiribati · Day 4Taneti MaamauBut national action must be matched by international action.
We call for greater ambition, stronger support for adaptation and climate finance that is adequate, predictable, and accessible.
particularly for small island developing states.
1passages
Maldives · Day 4Hussain Mohamed LatheefThat means finance must reach those who need it at the scale, at the speed, and on the terms needed to build resilience.
This is why COP31 in Antalya must be a COP of delivery.
Implementation must be the measure of commitment.
1passages
Lebanon · Day 4Nawaf SalamBut those efforts require a fairer and more equitable international economic order, one that offers them genuine opportunities to advance.
Mr. President, our shared responsibility is equally evident in the face of the profound transformations our world is undergoing.
Climate change threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions.
1passages
Lesotho · Day 4Samuel Ntsokoane MatekaneTo cope with these climate-related challenges, we call upon developed countries to honor their commitments by providing new, adequate, predictable, and accessible climate finance.
Further, we urge developed countries to transfer environmentally sound technology and to strengthen capacity of developing countries to effectively mitigate and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.
Climate justice demands nothing less.
1passages
North Macedonia · Day 4Hristijan MickoskiThe green transition is essential, but if we make it socially unsustainable, we will lose the political support that is necessary to implement it.
If we make it technologically dependent on a handful of sources, we will create new challenges while addressing old ones.
If we expect poorer countries to move at the same pace without providing them with equal access to capital and technology, we will create injustice instead of a transition.
1passages
Pakistan · Day 4Muhammad Shehbaz SharifMr. President, developing countries are in dire need of timely debt relief, affordable long-term financing, and a stronger voice in global financial institutions.
Development must receive the same urgency as security.
Ladies and gentlemen, Is it not an irony of fate that Pakistan contributes less than 1% of global emissions, yet repeatedly bears the horrific consequences of climate change?
1passages
Haiti · Day 4Alix Didier Fils-AiméThe fact that those who historically contributed the least are among those who are paying the heaviest price, often to the detriment of their own development.
Resources.
devoted to adaptation and resilience need to be commensurate with these challenges.
1passages
Egypt · Day 4Moustafa Kamal MadboulyThere can be no just transition if ambition is dissociated from fair implementation.
Climate action must go hand in hand with development, poverty reduction and job creation.
Adaptation, water security, and food security must receive the priority they deserve, especially in Africa and the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
1passages
Azerbaijan · Day 4Jeyhun Aziz oglu BayramovCOP29 provided a good example of this approach in practice.
As host and presidency, Azerbaijan guided negotiations toward ambitious and balanced outcomes, while working to ensure that all voices were heard.
The conference delivered several historic agreements, including the tripling of the global climate finance goal, full operationalization of Article 6 carbon market mechanisms, and further advancement of arrangements supporting the loss and damage fund for vulnerable communities affected by climate change.
1passages
Mauritius · Day 4Dhananjay RamfulWe look forward to this crucial global issue being addressed by the international community as a matter of urgency.
We also call for enhanced, accessible and predictable climate finance accompanied by comprehensive capacity building and disaster risk management for the most vulnerable.
I also wish to highlight that Mauritius is currently conducting a constitutional review exercise, which will include giving constitutional protection to the rights of nature.
1passages
Chad · Day 4Abdelmadjid Abdelrahim MahamatThe President of the Republic, the Marshal of Chad, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, as guarantor of these institutions, remains determined to maintain peace, to build national cohesion, and to create conditions for sustainable shared development.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, today, countries in the South are feeling the full brunt of climate change.
Lake Chad is one of the most salient symbols of this, Its being vulnerable directly affects the means of subsistence of millions of people.
1passages
Guatemala · Day 4Carlos Ramiro Martínez AlvaradoA country particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change knows that adaptation, risk management and the protection of rural livelihoods require national efforts, but also financing and cooperation commensurate with the needs, capable of building capacity and delivering results.
Defending multilateralism does not mean defending the status quo.
The United Nations must become more effective, representative, transparent and responsive to people.
1passages