Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, Ghana‘s Finance Minister, is leading the V20 Group of Finance Ministers under the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) to advocate for funding to implement Climate Prosperity Plans and Loss and Damage (LD).
The V20 Group of Finance Ministers is composed of 58 countries whose economies are most vulnerable to climate change impacts.
The CVF is an international partnership of countries highly vulnerable to a warming planet, of which Ghana’s President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo recently assumed its Presidency for a four-year tenure.
Speaking on Monday, Dr Henry Kokofu, Special Envoy of CVF Presidency, said under the leadership of the Finance Minister, the group had several ongoing initiatives with G7 and G20 countries to tackle global climate finance as well as loss and damage issues.
While acknowledging the about three-decade loss and damage campaign, he said through the support of Mr Ofori-Atta’s V20, the CVF group and negotiators, and civil societies, COP 27 held in Egypt delivered on the landmark decision to finance loss and damage.
The decision included a historic provision to set up a fund to help poorer countries face the harm caused by climate change, and that outcome was understandably celebrated by nations on the front line of a warming world.
The concept of loss and damage is for countries, which have contributed the most to climate change with their planet-warming emissions to pay poorer countries to recover from the resulting disasters.
The kilometres of roads, culverts and bridges that are washed away by severe floods due to a high volume of rain are examples of loss and damage caused by the climate crisis.
Dr Kokofu, who is the Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, said prior to the COP27, Mr Ofori-Atta also led the V20 to an event, held alongside the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings in Washington DC in the United States of America.
V20 economies have lost approximately $525 billion over the two decades, according to its latest research entitled, “Climate Vulnerable Economies Loss Report”.
The membership represents some 1.5 billion people, from Ghana, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Chad, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Eswatini, and Ethiopia
Others are The Gambia, Grenada, Guatemala Guinea, Guyana, Hat, Honduras, Kenya, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, and the Marshall Islands.
The rest are Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Palau Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Senegal, South Sudan, Sri Lanka Sudan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu Viet Nam and Yemen as a UN non-member observer State.
