Distinguished Chairs of the Subsidiary Bodies, Delegates, Ladies and gentleman

Senegal has the privilege of speaking on behalf of the 46 Least Developed Countries Group.

It is a pleasure to be in Bonn, back together in-person, during such a beautiful time of the year.

Allow me to begin by associating myself with the statements made by the G77 and China, AOSIS, and the African Group.

It has been a busy few months since we saw each other in Glasgow. Amongst other things, the science has since become even clearer that the scale of mitigation, adaptation and the means of implementation, particularly climate finance needed to address the climate crisis is far beyond what we have seen so far.

The IPCC’s Working Group 2 report referenced the need for dedicated and accessible finance for successful adaptation measures. We look forward to receiving a plan on how and when adaptation finance will be doubled as agreed in Glasgow. The report laid bare our vulnerabilities, with science affirming what our people are already experiencing at home. At 1.1 degree Celsius of warming, we are already reaching the limits of what we can do to adapt to the adverse impacts.

And the IPCC Working Group 3 report showed clearly that at current rates of emissions, the survival of vulnerable people and places is threatened. Emissions must peak by 2025. There can be no new fossil fuel infrastructure. The window for action remains open, and indeed a low carbon, climate-resilient future will bring many, wide-ranging benefits. Limiting warming to 1.5°C can be done, but the political will must be there. We once again plead for high emitters to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their NDCs that commit to deeper emissions reductions, reflective of each country’s fair share of the global effort, and scale up climate finance.

On the road to Sharm el-Sheikh and here in Bonn, Parties need to address important political and technical issues, of key priority to our Group and the 1 billion people we represent.

Loss and Damage

On Loss and Damage, there are three core priorities of the Group going into the Bonn session.

The first is ensuring new and additional finance to address loss and damage. The Glasgow Dialogue should lead to the establishment of a dedicated finance facility, and loss and
damage finance should be considered as a thematic area in the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance.

The second, is developing the operational modalities and structure of the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage in a way that ensures its key functions can be effectively delivered, before the work to fully operationalise the Santiago Network proceeds.

The third is ensuring that the GST takes stock of the implementation of Article 8, including its call for Parties to enhance action and support with respect to loss and damage, and that it highlights the extent of Loss and Damage already occurring and predicted.

Climate change is causing irreversible harm – loss and damage cannot be ignored any longer.

Climate Finance

Moving to climate finance, we all know that this is critical to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.

We look forward to the 2nd Technical Dialogue of the New Collective Quantified Goal taking place at this session. Issues of quantity, quality, scope, transparency, and access features of the new goal need to be carefully considered here and in forthcoming deliberations this year. For LDCs, achieving clarity on these elements will be difficult but crucial. The new goal must reflect a balanced and sufficient allocation to mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage, paying special attention to the poorest and most vulnerable countries.

Increasing adaptation finance is a priority, but improving access to finance is also critical for LDCs. Our countries still face considerable difficulties. We look forward to engaging productively in discussions regarding the Adaptation Fund, including aspects related to its 4th review and its membership

Global Stocktake

We look forward to attending the technical dialogues of the first Global Stocktake. The GST must be clear of progress towards our shared goals and where implementation of the Paris Agreement is lacking. The GST must have a strong outcome that ensures countries ratchet up ambition of mitigation, adaptation, and means of implementation in the NDCs in line with the goal of the Paris Agreement.

Adaptation

Adaptation remains an overriding priority for the LDCs. Our group calls for expedited support towards the formulation and particularly the implementation of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). This support should not be delayed as any delay endangers the livelihoods of millions of vulnerable communities in our countries.

Our group looks forward to the first workshop on the Global goal on adaptation. We have noted our preference on the approach and modality of the workshop in our submission. We would like to thank you for hearing parties’ views on the modalities to streamline the objectives of the GGA and address them in a cluster for the workshops.

Mitigation

On Mitigation, we must advance the establishment of Work Programme to Urgently Scale up Mitigation Ambition and Implementation based on the Glasgow Climate Pact for adoption by CMA4 this year, and the work programme, which should set a calendar of activities and clear milestones to deliver result by 2030 starting from 2023 with annual ambition raising mechanism. We must ensure that developed countries and major emitters revisit and strengthen 2030 targets in their NDCs in line with limiting warming to 1.5C.

Transparency

On transparency the group welcomes the current considerations to include information reported on climate change impact and adaptation – including loss and damage under the scope of the review process. However, we would like to extend the scope to cover information on support needed and received. This will increase understanding of countries progress towards the Paris Agreement goals and improve reporting over time. It is also critical for LDCs to start discussing how developed countries will provide financial and technical support for reporting and capacity-building for transparency.

Article 6

On Article 6, although we are glad to have been able to finalize the rules for carbon markets and non-market approaches in Glasgow, there’s still a lot of work to do to make sure these rules are further elaborated with environmental integrity. We need to make sure that corresponding adjustments will be applied in a transparent and consistent manner, and that the transition of units and activities from Clean Development Mechanism will be very limited, reflecting the spirit of the decision in Glasgow. Furthermore, we need to develop guidelines for reporting and infrastructure that are robust and consistent with these challenges, while also accessible for LDCs. We also need to focus on further developing the scope and activities encompassed in the non-market approaches under the Glasgow Committee on Non-Market Approaches. And finally for LDCs it is extremely important to ensure their special circumstances will be recognized along the implementation of article 6, as well as that the Secretariat implement the capacity building programme that it was mandated to do pursuant to the decision in Glasgow as soon as possible.

Gender

On Gender, the review of the Gender Action Plan must be more explicit about the gender responsiveness of climate finance, with a view to strengthening the capacity of women and emphasize the domestication of the Gender Action Plan at country level. The support for the implementation of the Gender Action Plan should be clearly stipulated, and the role of the National Gender Focal point to be communicated to their respective countries and source of funding for their actions clearly stipulated.

Agriculture

Agriculture is also of critical importance to our countries. There is a need to establish an International Agriculture Program to support developing countries implement outcomes of the Koronivia joint work on agriculture, and a window of funds to support proposals from developing countries to implement those outcomes. We look forward to having agreement on modalities for the implementation of Koronivia joint work on agriculture outcome and road map; and institutionalize it under the Convention.

Capacity Building

Capacity-building is crucial for all developing countries but especially for LDCs. There is a need to strengthen capacity of our countries to implement adaptation and mitigation plans, and upscaling financing of concrete capacity building initiatives, especially in addressing the capacity gaps as identified in the Capacity Building framework for Developing Countries. There must also be strengthened monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the framework for capacity building in developing countries, to ensure its effectiveness in having real impact on the ground.

Technology

Technology development and transfer is very important for our countries in the implementation of NDCs and contribution to the realisation of Global mitigation and adaptation goals. Besides soft technologies and capacity building, we need transfer of hard technology and financial support to implement green technologies on the ground and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. National Designated Entities also need financial, technical and logistical support to enable them to mobilize technology needs of their respective countries and include these in requests submitted to the Climate Technology Center and Network. Some LDCs have not undertaken their TNAs while others have done it partially, and a big number has completed and are waiting for appropriate support to enable them implement the outcomes of their respective TNAs. This calls for continued and strengthened cooperation and collaboration between the Financial and Technology Mechanisms of the Convention

Chairs, as always, the LDC Group is ready to work constructively with other Groups and Parties to ensure the fairest and most ambitious global response to the climate crisis, and to bring
hope of a brighter future to present and future generations from all around the world.

We look forward to productive sessions over the next two weeks.

I thank you.