Statement for the COP27 CPP Flagship Event by H.E. VP Faisal Naseem, Vice-President of the Republic of Maldives

STATEMENT BY H.E. FAISAL NASEEM

COP27 Climate Prosperity Plans Flagship Event

08 November 2022

Your Excellency President Nana Akufo-Addo, Your Excellency President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is my pleasure to join you today at this important event.

The Climate Vulnerable Forum is very special for the Maldives. We were the founding presidency of the CVF. His Excellency President Mohamed Nasheed was its founder and we are very pleased that he is also serving as its Ambassador for Ambition today. President Nasheed is playing a wider role to bring the situation of the Maldives to the international community.

Maldives is often being cited as a poster child for climate-threatened nations. It is no news to any of you that with each passing year, the sea creeps further into our islands, threatening our very survival inch by inch. Already, swells have become more frequent, and our exposure to slow-onset climate threats is bound to increase as unrelenting climate furies unleash onto our islands, with every passing year of insufficient action from the international community.

We therefore gather here today as climate vulnerable nations fighting for our survival, pleading for more than mere survival. Our nations deserve to thrive. They deserve to tap into prosperity and abundance, and to guarantee the greatest well-being for our people.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, with our Climate Prosperity Plan, Maldives joins our fellow CVF members to strive to chart our way towards such a future. And in particular, the CPPs will be our investment vehicles and strategies to mobilize the funds we need for bold climate action.

The CPP will provide a concrete roadmap to support us to do our part to fight for 1.5 degrees target as a nation and to safeguard our islands against the worst threats of climate change. The prosperity plan is all about our efforts to turn this challenge into an opportunity – for growth, for health, for development.

To achieve this objective, our national Climate Prosperity Plan will detail a strategy to manage sea level rise and not only preserve but also rebound our biodiversity, including our highly threatened coral reefs. The CPP will also help us to advance on an integrated energy system for Male’ and other islands, with the goal to rapidly scale-up our renewable energy transition. In parallel to this effort, we will be retiring diesel capacity and training our workforce to ensure a rapid transition towards the jobs of the future.

A successful switch to a prosperity pathway will indeed require a whole-of-economy approach, with all key actors involved. The natural wonders of the Maldives have profiled us as a touristic destination. We want to ensure that the resorts, as key actors of our economy, are fully active participants in this transition.

We look forward to finalizing our CPP in the coming months so that we can quickly move to mobilizing finance for implementation. We plead with the international community to join with us and make our ambitions under the CPP a reality. We need the full support and the full concessional finance envelope available to us to make this possible.

We commend the pioneering spirit of Ghana, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as well as all other countries seeking to develop their own national CPP. Countries of the CVF have a track record for taking on ambitious leadership. This is a crucial moment and we do not have time to wait and see if the world will follow. It is of course our hope that, as we propose meaningful investment pathways towards a better future, the international community will seize the opportunity to support us.

I am proud that our nations are bringing concrete solutions to the table. Let us continue our joint efforts to drive this ambitious prosperity agenda all the way home.

I thank you.

Download statement here.