Ministers from the 46 least developed countries (LDCs) have met in Dakar, Senegal, ahead of the United Nations international climate meeting the twenty-seventh Conference of the Parties (COP27) that will take place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, in November, to coordinate the bloc's strategy for securing more tangible and ambitious outcomes that match the urgency of the climate crisis.

“Ambitious and urgent climate action is needed to put the world on track to limit warming to 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels. Huge emissions gaps remain and need to be closed in this critical decade,” said Senegal Environment and Sustainable Development Minister Abdou Karim Sall.

As world leaders converge for the seventy-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly and set out their countries' priorities, it is vital that climate action remains a top priority. Addressing the climate crisis cannot be adequately done without capturing the demands of the most vulnerable countries, the LDC group emphasised.

On September 14, the LDC Ministers issued a declaration on climate change in which they affirmed that the global response to climate change must be ambitious, fair and equitable to advance the interests and aspirations of poor and vulnerable countries and peoples.

In the declaration, the Ministers also “note, with serious concern, the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of Working Group II that human-induced climate change has caused loss and damage to nature and people, including some losses that are irreversible; that some limits to adaptation have already been reached; and that near-term actions that limit global warming to 1.5 °C would substantially reduce projected losses and damages, but cannot eliminate them all.”

However, the bloc also recognised the findings of the IPCC AR6 of Working Group III and, in particular, the finding that limiting warming to 1.5 °C is possible, but requires global greenhouse-gas emissions to peak before 2025, be reduced by 43% by 2030 relative to 2019 levels and must reach net zero around 2050.

The LDC group also recognised “the importance of operationalising a work programme to urgently scale up mitigation ambition and implementation in this critical decade in Sharm El-Sheikh this year, with a clear roadmap to close the 2030 ambition gap and keep the 1.5 °C goal within reach”.

“The LDCs are bearing the brunt of the devastating consequences of climate change. Failure to act against this phenomenon risks undermining decades of development and robbing millions of people of development,” said Sall.

The issue of funding has always been the linchpin of the climate negotiations. Increasing adaptation finance has been a significant achievement, but improving access to it is also essential for LDCs, he stressed.

“COP27 will be a critical moment for our nations as we continue our fight towards climate justice, which requires securing climate finance to protect our people from the impacts of a climate crisis they did little to cause and keeping the possibility of limiting warming to 1.5 °C alive,” said LDC group climate negotiations chairperson Madeleine Diouf Sarr.

For several years already, the climate crisis has led to destruction and devastation across LDCs, and the impacts of climate change will increase in intensity and frequency, adding to the burdens of LDC nations, setting back development efforts and leading to unrecoverable loss and damage, she said.

“For us vulnerable countries, it is crucial that our capacities to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change are increased. Developed countries must deliver on their promise of doubling adaptation finance.

“At COP27, we must see a plan for the delivery of these promised funds. The details of the Global Goal on Adaptation must also be developed. Adaptation is a critical pillar of the Paris Agreement that must not be ignored,” she emphasised.

A continuous flow of finance is one of the objectives of the Paris Agreement and a vital element in the fight against climate change. Developed countries must make up the shortfall in delivering the agreed $100-billion in climate finance annually, Diouf Sarr said.

At COP27, as deliberations on the new climate finance goal continue, LDCs must ensure that the next goal is based on science and reflects the full needs of the countries, she added.

Further, among the key issues to be dealt with during the climate negotiations this year are the financial mechanisms for loss and damage, the Global Goal on Adaptation, the raising of the ambition in the fight against climate change, as well as the establishment of sources of appropriate funding, noted Sall.

“With regard to loss and damage, the fundamental priority is to secure new and additional financing to deal with it. The Glasgow Dialogue must lead to the establishment of a dedicated financing mechanism, and the financing of loss and damage must be considered as an independent element in the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance,” he said.

In the declaration, the LDC group stressed that the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance should be based on science and address the needs of developing countries to implement their adaptation and mitigation actions, and address loss and damage, including on technology transfer and capacity building.