As you may be aware, the UK government recently released the Draft Concept Note for the proposed Taskforce on Access to Climate Finance – an initiative arising from the recent UK-hosted Climate and Development Ministerial process. See Background information. The UK is inviting feedback ASAP on the Draft Concept Note.

You are invited to a CSO briefing session on the Draft Concept Note. There will be two briefing sessions covering the same information - context for the Taskforce, and a discussion on the pros and cons of the Draft Concept Note among CSOs. Calendar invitations will follow. Please pick the meeting time that works best for your time zone. Both sessions will be held on zoom.

Join Zoom Meeting: https://iied-org.zoom.us/j/82065918650?pwd=THBRd2cwS3JzQXB0RHExOWN5T3Bxdz09

Meeting ID: 820 6591 8650

Passcode: 970327

The attached briefing paper outlines IIED’s analysis of the Draft Concept Note and will be referenced during the briefing sessions.

IIED is hosting these briefing sessions to support CSOs to engage – the UK is keen to receive feedback from civil society and IIED has committed to summarise the CSOs thoughts for the UK Government, but CSOs can also provide feedback directly to the UK on the Draft Concept Note should they choose to do so. I spoke to Cat about this last week and sought her agreement to extend this invite directly to the relevant Bond and CAN-UK sub-group members. Additional CSOs who have been engaged in this process or through wider COP26 team outreach are also being invited. Feel free to share this email with CSOs you think might be interested – they are very welcome to attend.

As emphasised by vulnerable countries during a recent similar briefing session, it is critical that the Draft Concept Note ensures the Taskforce is set up to deliver on the priority solutions proposed by vulnerable countries at the Climate and Development Ministerial in March. We appreciate this is an extremely busy period, but we are working to the timelines set by the UK government for feedback on the Draft Concept Note.

We hope to see you at this briefing session as we move this critical agenda forward in 2021. Please reach out if you have any questions.

Background

On 31 March, the COP26 Presidency hosted a virtual Climate and Development Ministerial to identify practical steps that countries can take, together with multilateral organisations, to support the delivery of the Paris Agreement and Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development in the world’s most climate vulnerable countries. The Chair’s Summary is available here.

At that meeting, vulnerable countries were effective in collectively proposing clear solutions for overcoming the critical challenges of accessing climate finance. As a result, a new Task Force on Access to Climate Finance was initiated, and the UK is working with Fiji to set it up. The Draft Concept Note for the Task Force is available here and the UK is inviting feedback ASAP. 

E3G, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre (RCCC), and the World Resources Institute (WRI), supported state and non-state participants from the Global South and Global North to engage with the Climate and Development Ministerial in March. Further information, including workshop reports, are available here.

This briefing session for CSOs will mirror a similar briefing session held recently with vulnerable countries on the Draft Concept Note.

Thanks,

Ebony

Ebony Holland

Senior Researcher, Nature-Climate Policy Lead

International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) 

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