COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt |17 November 2022

Family photo of the 3 Africa Climate commissions of the African Union

Minister Joubert urges developed countries to focus on delivering on the promises of Glasgow

With the Paris Rulebook essentially concluded thanks to COP26 in Glasgow last year, the litmus test of this and every future COP is how far deliberations are accompanied by action.

Everybody, every single day, everywhere in the world, needs to do everything they possibly can to avert the climate crisis. Therefore COP27 sets out a new direction for a new era of implementation: where outcomes from the formal and informal process truly begin to come together to drive greater climate progress – and accountability for that progress.

It is with these rational that the Minister for Agriculture, Climate Change & Environment, Flavien Joubert, attended a number of key ministerial side-events and bilateral meetings with key personalities and stakeholders around current climate

change efforts that took place during COP 27.

These include a first ministerial round table on pre-2030 ambition and continued discussions on the global stocktake – a process for countries and stakeholders to see where they’re collectively making progress towards meeting the goals of the

Paris Agreement – and where they’re not.

Together, all these events provided Minister Joubert and the rest of the Seychelles delegation with a space to have frank and open discussions on progress made to date. With all key stakeholders and partners he engaged with, he urged them, particularly developed countries, to focus on delivering on the promises of Glasgow and stressed that human needs should be put at the heart of all efforts to address climate change.

He highlighted practical solutions to the challenge of climate change and explore approaches to immediately scale up the implementation of these solutions in key sectors with all stakeholders.

Some of the side-events Minister Joubert attended focused on the overarching theme of turning climate pledges into climate action in pursuit of net-zero emissions, enhanced resilience for the most vulnerable, and aligning financial flows with these goals. Particularly the one organised by Pew Charitable Trust on Coastal Wetlands in National and Subnational Climate Strategies: NatureBase Solutions in practice.

The panel discussion also provided for ideas on how to improve consensus that climate change adaptation and enhancing resilience offer opportunities in terms of sustainable development for small island developing states (Sids) and developing countries.

Another take away was how success stories and lessons learned can be modelled and shared with others so that they can be examples to others.

One such success story is the 2016 debt-for-nature swap for ocean conservation which brought together the government of Seychelles, the Nature Conservancy and

the Seychelles’ Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust (SeyCCAT) in a US $21.6 million debt buy-back.

In the Congo Basin side-event on ‘La Finance climat au centre de l’operationalisation de la Commission du Congo’, Minister Joubert reiterated the Africa Island States Climate Commissionas a country partnership which promotes Africa Island States action for climate-resilientsustainable development to conserve biodiversity, enhance local livelihoods and economies forgreater social and environmental security among coastal communities.

He also said that it existsto increase collaboration with the other two African Climate Commissions and to align the threeCommissions with the 1.5 degree Celsius target of the Paris Agreement, to accelerate andmobilise financial resources for the operationalisation of the three Climate Commissions.

At the UNODC side-event on ‘How combatting plastic pollution and illegal traffic in plastic waste can help reduce carbon emissions’, Minister Joubert spoke about addressing the issue of plastic pollution and plastic waste management in Seychelles from the perspective of a small developing island state and the contribution of these efforts to climate change mitigation.

At the high-level side event organised by COI jointly with the CREWS (Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems) project, under the presidency of France and the Caribbean Met Service, Minister Joubert said that at this COP27, he could see the light at the end of the tunnel which begins with a lifesaving campaign through CREWS and moving the focus from promises and pledges to action on the ground.

This is where the CREWS will be useful to improve emergency preparedness in developing countries, particularly in small island developing states.

Minister Joubert also had the opportunity to network and hold bilateral talks with his

counterparts from various countries such as Italy, Singapore, Maldives, Republic of Congo, Republic of Niger and financial institutions like the Green Climate Fund, NDC Partnership and Commonwealth secretariat respectively.

Following the high-level side-events and bilateral meetings, Minister Joubert also participated in a series of interviews with CGTN TV News and a Brazilian journalist discussing on Seychelles biodiversity conservation plans and vulnerability, Seychelles blue carbon initiative, debt-swap climate finance initiative and our position on loss and damage.

Contributed