Legarda Supports Launch of Climate Vulnerable Forum’s Global Parliamentary Group

House Deputy Speaker and Antique Congresswoman expressed support to the launch of the Global Parliamentary Group of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), a dedicated program for parliamentarians from across the 48 CVF member-states to support one another to fight the climate crisis.

Legarda said that the Global Parliamentary Group should enable the CVF’s call for a Climate Emergency Pact in safeguarding the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit of the Paris Agreement and the delivery of at least $100 billion per year in climate finance or $500 billion until 2024 for developing countries. She also stressed that ambition must be complemented by the right economic and financial support structures to mobilize climate finance flows to our economies.

“Parliaments must challenge and complement the executive departments to dramatically raise climate ambition. If countries historically responsible for the climate crisis won’t act with urgency, we must act in concert to compel them to take responsibility. We must, in parallel, set a path for ourselves to secure a low-carbon and climate resilient future,” Legarda said.

Legarda explained that CVF Global Parliamentary Group lends further impetus to climate action by establishing a dedicated work plan of legislative activities that will help achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement, Sustainable Development Goals, and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, as well as support planetary prosperity through Climate Prosperity Plans.

The four activity areas for the CVF Global Parliamentary Group include sharing of best practices and knowledge resources to support active collaboration, development of a unified legislative framework and agenda, and international outreach to engage in dialogue with parliaments outside the CVF in order to encourage robust international partnership for climate action.

“Hard fought development gains and productivity will continue to be undermined or reversed if the 1.5-degrees is breached. We need unprecedented global collaboration. Let us take this global step together through the CVF Global Parliamentary Group,” Legarda concluded.

The CVF is an international partnership of countries highly vulnerable to a warming planet composed of 48 members across  Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific, representing over 1.2 billion people worldwide.

The CVF Global Parliamentary Group launch was moderated by Mr. Saber Chowdhury, Chair of the Bangladesh Parliamentary Committee on the Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and was held in collaboration with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA). The event gathered support from other world leaders, including former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; Mr. Hassan Latheef, Chair of the Maldivian Parliament’s General Purpose Committee; IPU Secretary-General Martin Chungong; and Mr. Darren Jones, Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee of the United Kingdom’s House of Commons.