Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman addressed the 2nd Leadership Dialogue titled, “Achieving a Sustainable and Inclusive Recovery,” at the Stockholm+50 Meetings on behalf of G77 and China. Minister Rehman appreciated the Co-Chairs of this leadership dialogue – Germany and Indonesia – for their hard work. She highlighted the need to take proactive measures to reinvigorate key COVID-affected sectors, in order to alleviate the poor who had been hit the worst by the pandemic. Speaking on behalf of G77 and China, The Federal Minister put forth propositions for priority actions to achieve sustainable and inclusive recover, “First, we must take urgent actions in key COVID-affected sectors, such as food, energy, tourism and manufacturing sectors, to protect the poor and the most vulnerable populations living in the developing countries. Second, it is important to mobilize adequate financial resources to enable recovery. For that, an additional US$ 4-5 trillion is needed for developing countries to finance their recovery. So far, only a fraction of this has been made available. We should utilize all possible channels to mobilize finances, this includes Official Development Assistance, debt relief, rechannelling of Special Drawing Rights, and expanding financing facility for Multilateral Development Banks.” Highlighting the need to revamp consumption and production patterns, minister Rehman continued, “Third, we must re-think our patterns of consumption and production. We can certainly produce with greater respect for nature. We can stop the pollution of our lakes, rivers, and oceans. We can produce with less water and without dangerous chemicals. Technological transfers and technical assistance are key to achieving these goals and we must also recall the harmful impacts of agricultural subsidies and protectionist policies on sustainable food systems. Fourth, recovery efforts should also address the widening technological and digital gap that exists between the developed and developing countries.” Picturing a better post-COVID world, “Fifth, we must work towards promoting the alignment of business practices with the SDGs and the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement. While, Sixth, the pandemic has highlighted the need for better foresight capability and resilience planning in national and international governance. We need to improve market access as well for developing countries and promote their inclusion in the global supply chains. Seventh and finally, there is a lot that we can learn from each other. We need to establish a global repository of successful practices" for our collective sustainable recovery.” concluded Minister Rehman in today's event. While addressing the 1st Leadership Dialogue at the Stockholm+50 Meetings on behalf of the G77 and China on June 2nd, Federal Minister focused on the climate change, biodiversity loss and the post-COVID-19 challenges that we face today to seize this opportunity to achieve a sustainable, inclusive and resilient recovery from the pandemic. Minister Rehman, while addressing the prestigious event, expressed concern about biodiversity loss by stating that “None of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets has been fully achieved which threatens the achievement of the SDGs. We need to turn the tide on deforestation, land degradation, and pollution and restore balance with our natural ecosystems to foster innovative business models and technologies that contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. We need a post-2020 framework that promotes the conservation of biodiversity, its sustainable use and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources. But, in particular, we need a framework that includes a substantial increase in finance, capacity building and technology transfer for implementation in developing countries.” The Federal Minister emphasized our need to “demonstrate our vision, leadership, and commitment to improve our relationship with nature and place our commitment to conserve, restore, and sustainably encourage biodiversity conservation and protection to address climate change. We believe it is the time to accelerate actions, to put nature on a path to recovery by 2030 to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We must also put the environment as a whole, be it biodiversity, the ocean, or climate – at the centre of our COVID-19 recovery strategies. Science, technology, and capacity building can support our transformation.”
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