Speaking at the meeting, the Colombian Minister of Environment, Susana Muhamad, emphasized the importance of investing in adaptation, especially in critical situations, such as floods and extreme droughts, which have an annual cost of around 400 million dollars outside the budget allocated for these emergencies.

Muhamad joined government colleagues from Kenia, France and Germany to forward the Preliminary Report of the Expert Group on Debt, Nature and Climate, in making proposals to make the vision of reforming the global credit structure a reality.

Among the proposals is the modification of the international financial systems to better integrate the risks associated with climate change and biodiversity; and for developing countries to receive greater support, including preferential financing conditions.

It is essential to establish bold solutions, including the creation of a global pact to redirect part of the sovereign debts towards strategic climate investments’, said Muhamad, who also chairs the UN Conference on Biodiversity (COP16).

Muhamad also stressed the negative impact of the quite large sums devoted to pay the external debt, which acts as a heavy weight on the shoulders of developing, thwarting their attempts to deal with climate change and biodiversity conservation.

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