NGOs urge G20 to speed up reforms for climate finance

By AFP

NGOs urged the G20 on Wednesday to move faster on reforming international financial systems to combat climate change and pandemics at IMF and World Bank annual meetings next week.

"The world is on the brink of catastrophe," the non-governmental organisations said in a joint letter ahead of the October 9-14 gathering in Marrakesh, Morocco.

"Time is running short and modest incrementalism won't be enough," said the letter signed by nine NGOs, including Global Citizen, ONE Campaign, Pandemic Action Network and E3G.

The International Monetary Fund and World Bank are under pressure to reform their lending systems to better address the challenges posed by climate change.

The letter calls for tripling financing of multilateral development banks by 2030, as suggested by an independent expert group commissioned by the G20.

It urges ministers to make good on a pledge to reallocate $100 billion in IMF special drawing rights (SDR) to help vulnerable nations tackle climate change.

The NGOs also say that G20 members and other wealthy nations should phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2025.

Friederike Roeder, Global Citizen's vice president for global policy, said he hoped the talks would lead to "measurable progress by the World Bank and IMF on several topics".

"We need much more financing for development and climate -- not just promises," he told AFP.

"We need an action plan with numbers that is more ambitious than what we have seen until now," he said.