Chief Operating Officer (CEO) of Global Centre of Adaptation (GCA) Dr. Patrick Verkooijen has stated countries vulnerable to climate change should restructure debt. He made the statement in his address to the Parliament of the Maldives.
GCA is a Netherlands-based international organisation working as a solutions broker to accelerate, innovate, and scale adaptation action for a climate-resilient world. In November last year, GCA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to mobilise USD200 million through climate adaptation projects in the Maldives.
CEO Verkooijen is visiting the Maldives to hold discussions with the relevant authorities in order to begin the work as part of the agreement.
In the address to the Parliament, CEO Verkooijen highlighted that trillions of debt are currently owed by poor, debt-distressed, climate-vulnerable nations to rich ones and that countries should restructure all or much of this debt by allowing servicing payments to be reinvested in making the underlying assets more resilient and secure. He said it would immediately free up far more than USD100 billion a year for nature-based and resilient investments and creditors should be more than satisfied with better safeguards against losses triggered through climate catastrophe. He also said countries should work together to forge a global small island state Accelerated Adaptation Programme.
Furthermore, CEO Verkooijen noted GCA has a South Asia programme headquartered in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and that its research and expertise will be available to the Maldives from that hub. He highlighted the need to implement decisions similar to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) channeling its finance from its latest USD650 billion of Special Drawing Rights into a Resilience and Sustainability Trust to support poor and emerging nations.
He also suggested the proposed guarantees scheme of the Vulnerable Twenty (V20) Group, which would leverage USD15 of climate adaptation and renewable projects for every USD1 of public funds contributed.