 My name is Inger, Inger Andersen. I am the Undersecretary General and Executive Director of UNEP. I bring you greetings from beautiful Nairobi, where the rains have just started, but where we also know that adaptation finance, we see it up close and personal, is insufficient, which is why I'm so pleased to be hosting this very important event on adaptation finance and it's wonderful to have such an excellent, superb list of speakers today. A warm thanks to E3G as well as to IIED for supporting this event. Now, in Paris, we agreed to fund climate adaptation and mitigation in balance. That's what we said in Article 9, paragraph 4, but we haven't quite done that and it is time to step up. The Secretary General has called for equal financing for adaptation as well as for mitigation and now is the time. We have these three planetary crisis, the crisis of climate, the crisis of biodiversity and the crisis of pollution and each of these means that we need to step up, but adaptation has an important key to bring us to some solutions and we are seeing that we are not where we need to be. We are currently falling far short on the adaptation side. The OECD data tells us that countries have not met 100 billion a year. We know that not even once and we know that we are significantly short, but we are much shorter when it comes to adaptation finance. We know that currently we estimate that the cost is around 70 billion currently for adaptation finance, but that is expected to be far, far higher as we unfortunately warm as the IPCC scenario suggests we will, even in the most optimistic scenario. So global finance flows need to increase significantly. Using some real challenges in adaptation, generating the income streams is not easy because it's not easy to see where the return will come from when you invest in coastal forest management, when you invest in mangrove restoration, when you invest in flood systems, when you invest in large storm drains or in no-build zones for fire prone areas, it's not easy to see where the return will come from unlike maybe renewable energy. However, in the longer term it will significantly reduce the burden on the budget and the burden on people's lives. And we do see that that mismatch in the timing also because these investments have a longer deeper horizon, whereas obviously we need these investments right now as we've seen on our television screens and in our real world in terms of the impacts of climatic variability and change. And we know that there is a shortage of public finance resources. So I really hope that in the conversations we're going to have today, speakers will speak to how we will scale up, how we can expedite it, how we can make it real, and how we can make this commitment as we head towards COP26. I'm very much looking forward to hearing from everyone. We will have chats and I invite people to chat in the event. And I'm very, very pleased to introduce our first speaker who is Minister Con Brophy, the Minister of State for Overseas Development, AID and diaspora in Ireland to officially launch the Champions Initiative. Minister, you have the floor. Thank you very much. I'd like to obviously thank you, Madam Undersecretary, for setting the scene so clearly and for dealing so well with the joys of technology and virtual conferences at the start. This, of course, obviously is a particularly busy time with UNGA and the run-up to COP26. So I'm honoured to introduce this Champions Group on Adaption Finance, which reflects a real top priority for Ireland, channeling more and better finance to those on the front lines of climate change. A key message I want to give today to my colleagues from developing countries is that we've heard your calls on Adaption Finance and we're responding. The group you see here today, which is Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK, Denmark, Sweden and Finland are all bilateral finance providers who want to increase the quality, the quantity, the accessibility of climate adoption finance, particularly for least development countries and for the small island development states within both our own financing and global financing as a whole. Now, we are inviting other bilateral and multilateral finance providers to join us if they share this commitment. And therefore, I'm particularly pleased today and delighted to announce that Germany has announced its intention to join our group. We recognise the UN Secretary General's strong call for balanced climate finance between adoption and litigation, and I'm delighted to see the Secretary General's representative here today. So Ireland has a strong record on climate finance to adoption. Our assistance is primarily grant-based and focused on adaptation action. We're proud to support the least developed countries funds, in addition to the Green Climate Fund and the Adaption Fund. We quickly saw the potential of the least developed country initiative for adaptation and resilience known as LIFE-AR, which aims to more effectively channel the adoption finance to local level. And Ireland stepped up on this from the very start. But we know that individual country investments are insufficient. We need to lead by example and bring the finance community together to significantly increase the overall share of adoption finance to ensure that it flows where it's most needed, in particular to least developed countries and those small island developing states. We also know that there are significant barriers to accessing adaptation finance, and we need to delve into these so that money can actually flow quickly to where it's most needed. Most importantly, we know that the quality of adaptation action needs to be improved. Investments need to bring tangible improvements in the lives of those people who are experiencing droughts, floods, extreme weather events, irreversible changes to their natural environments. So stronger data and learning is needed for smarter adaptation and risk-informed planning. System-wide approaches are needed. Adaptation needs to be built into national and sub-national planning and budgets across all sectors. To address these issues, we need to come together to put the issues on the table and invite others to join us to tackle the issues. This is an idea here today to stand together in solidarity with the calls from developing countries and put on record our willingness to commit and to bring other finance providers on board. We've received excellent support from our partners, E3G and IIED, to facilitate the launch of the event. I'd like to sincerely thank their teams for your hard work. Now it's my honour to pass on the floor to my colleague from the Netherlands, Vice Minister Vanda Haidon. Oh man, with your indulgence, Inger. Thanks so much for setting out the scene and I'm not going to sort of reiterate and acknowledge what you have said and what we've all read in the IPCC report. We know that the situation is grave and that we're running out of time. And I've seen it myself having lived in Vietnam and Ethiopia for many years. One gets wetter, the other one gets drier, but it's all the consequence of the same. It's all the consequence of global climate change. And so we need to speed up our actions collectively to address those challenges. And in doing so, we need more money. We need to get to mobilise more money as a whole and from within that we need to allocate more to adaptation. I just fully want to align myself with the statement just made by Colin Brophy and his introduction of the champion group. And two weeks ago, we had the GCA high-level meeting, the dialogue with global leaders and here again, we reconfirmed and reaffirmed our commitment made at the Climate Adaptation Summit that the Netherlands will respond to the UNSG's call to allocate half of our climate finance to adaptation. The reality is actually that we allocate more than 50% of our public climate finance to adaptation and on top of it, and that is no less important for me, it is mostly grant based and it is geared towards least developed countries. And we do this because we know that this is where the rubber meets the road, where poor and vulnerable communities face the consequences of global inertia and global inaction. And this is where we need to provide hope and perspective for a life in dignity. And for years to come, adaptation, grants and least developed countries focus will remain the priorities for Dutch public climate finance. At the Climate Adaptation Summit, hosted by the Netherlands in January, Minister Kachan and myself, we convened a whole range of stakeholders for a dialogue on accelerating adaptation ambitions and actions in African LDCs. And what emerged from that conversation was really the strong desire felt by all of us to have sort of a common space where we can meet, where we can, from all parties, all stakeholders, dialogue on the issues regarding adaptation. And now with weeks to go to a crucial COP26 in Glasgow, there is a huge need to build trust, to develop a shared understanding of the barriers and the challenges and to propose those concrete solutions in there that you were referring to. And I'm really honored today that we are sharing this space, not just as donors but together with representatives from the LDCs and from the SIDS because only together we can get there in time. We take very seriously our role as an ambassador to advocate for the action that was pledged at the Climate Adaptation Summit. I'm incredibly keen that we have joined the Champions Group. We're committed to advancing a more balanced approach to 50-50 between mitigation and adaptation, but equally to strive for more climate finance, making the cake a little bigger for all of us and improved quality and accessibility of adaptation finance. I would like to use the opportunity also to announce that we will further increase our contribution to the LDC fund with 25 million euros. I believe the enhanced and easy access for LDCs to climate adaptation funding is of critical importance. And this fund is a really useful vehicle to facilitate such funding for this vulnerable group. In conclusion, I'm really happy and I look forward to partner with you, members of the Champions Group, representatives of climate vulnerable countries, to really progress on those issues and to achieve an ambitious outcome on adaptation during the COP. I hope that many countries will follow the example that we have set that has now been joined by Germany because we can, because we must and because we shall, because we have no time to lose. Inger, back to you. Thank you so very much, Minister. And it's a pleasure. I'd like to thank both Minister Broglie as well as yourself for very strong statements and commitment to this initiative and to the criticality of adaptation finance. It now gives me great pleasure to call on our next speaker. He is Minister Fleming Willem Mortensen, Minister of Development Corporation from Denmark. The new IPCC report is clear. Even at 1.5 degrees of global warming, humanity will be severely impacted by climate change. This will hit everyone, but it will be especially hard for vulnerable communities. Adaptation to climate change is not a choice. It is a necessity. We will have to adapt. We are just about five weeks away from the COP26 and we need collective action on a global scale. Delivering on our financial commitments is critical for building trust and accelerating action. The Danish government is stepping up. By 2023, we aim to deliver more than half a billion US dollar annually in grant financing the climate actions. In addition, Denmark will continue efforts to mobilize climate finance from others, public and private sources. However, we also need to increase the share that goes to adaptation. For every four US dollar of international climate finance, we, to developing countries, only one dollar goes to adaptation. This is not enough. Both developing countries and the UN Secretary General call for a better balance in response Denmark will dedicate at least 60% of our grant-based climate finance to adaptation. We want to make clear that Denmark is committed to walk and talk and give our fair share to climate finance, not least for adaptation action. This is why I am so proud to be a partner today at the launch of the informal donor champions group for adaptation finance. We aim to let by example, and I believe this is the most credible way to increase not only the quantity but also the quality and access to adaptation finance. I am happy to be part of this group and I hope many more will join us. Together with our developing countries partners, we need a collective effort if we are to succeed. Adaptation is not a choice. With our announcement, Denmark has clearly shown that we are willing to walk the talk. And looking at all of you here, I am confident that together we can rise the ambitions for more finance for adaptation. Thank you. Let me thank Minister Mortensen for his intervention and for the commitment that 60% of grant-based climate finance henceforth will go to adaptation, something we appreciate. And now I would like to give the floor to Minister Pierre Olsen-Frit, Minister of International Development Corporation of Sweden. Over to you. Dear ministers, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, science is clear. The reality is even clearer. Climate change and the increasingly rapid and worrying loss of the planet's many species now greatly affect human security on the planet. It is destroying nature and depriving people of their homes, livelihoods and futures, affecting more inequalities. Indeed, true adaptation incorporates and harnesses the unlimited potential and values of biological diversity. While it is clear and clearly critical to bring down our global CO2 emissions to zero as soon as possible, we also have to build resilience to make climate change in the best way possible. And that time is now. The world is indeed in need of a new economic model that takes nature and its ecosystems into account as the precious resources they are and that we are completely dependent on for our survival. Let me be clear. We need to reduce our emissions drastically and rapidly if we are going to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. There is no other way to save our planet, to save ourselves and our loved ones. The latest IPCC report is crystal clear. Adaptation measures are urgently needed. Therefore, we need to mobilize more adaptation finance and ensure that it is readily available to vulnerable countries. Now, I'm not in a position to point a finger at anyone else. Sweden also has a long way to go. Our material footprint is too large to be sustainable. The same is true of our carbon emissions. But we are taking the climate crisis seriously. And Sweden is at the forefront of an inclusive and technology-driven green transition that creates jobs for the future, fossil-free Sweden. And we are a leading contributor in international climate financing. Sweden has increased our climate financing more than three times since 2014. We are the biggest contributor per capita to some of the most important climate funds, including those that focus exclusively on adaptation. The need for long-term adaptation finance is vital. Therefore, are we providing multi-annual support to several funds, including to the Adaptation Fund and the least developed countries fund? We encourage other donors to do the same. We also contribute to adaptation through our Bilateral Development Corporation and the Multilateral Development Banks. All in all, some 50% of our bilateral development financing goes to adaptation. We stand ready to continue supporting developing countries in the implementation of their priorities. And in doing so, Sweden fully supports the aim to achieve better balance in the allocation of finance for climate adaptation. And this is why Sweden joined this informal champions group on adaptation finance. By speaking directly with partner countries, we seek to overcome the current obstacles so that we can increase the quality, the quantity, and access to adaptation finance. Now, I call on others to join us now ahead of the COP to help raise adaptation finance and by doing so, we will also help attain the 100 billion target and send a strong message to the partner countries that we deliver on our promises. Together, we need to take responsibility for reducing the emissions and together, we need to deal with the consequences of our actions. Let us improve adaptation capacity, increase resilience, and reduce vulnerability of those countries most in need. Thank you. I'd like to thank the Honourable Minister Fridt from Sweden for his intervention and for stressing the importance of the link between biodiversity and climate change as we invest in adaptation, we are investing also in the future of our planet. It now gives me great pleasure to call on Minister Villis Gennari, who is Minister for Development Corporation and Foreign Trade from Finland. Over to you, Finland. Dear friends, building resilience and adapting to the impacts of climate change is the most critical challenge of our times. Finland is scaling up its climate finance and in the spirit of the Paris Agreement aims for balanced distribution of funding between adaptation and mitigation. Building on one of the first national adaptation strategies in the world, Finland is a forerunner in national adaptation efforts. We are also supporting various adaptation initiatives through our official development assistance. Our contributions are particularly strong in the field of meteorology. We have financed the improvement of weather and climate services for over 50 national meteorological and hydrological services around the globe during the past decade. Together with the other Nordic countries, we have made a strong recapitalization of the Nordic Development Fund, making it a key actor in the fight against climate change. Finland is also a long-term funder of the least developed countries fund and we are actively involved in the leader's panel of the Water and Climate Coalition. Together with Indonesia, we co-chair the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action. We strongly support and encourage integration of climate action including adaptation in national budget and planning processes. While national institutions and processes such as planning and budgeting are key, we also need to ensure voices on the ground are being heard. Women and other vulnerable groups must be involved. Finland is proud to have joint like-minded countries in the Champions Group on adaptation and finance in this effort. We look forward to working together with all of you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would like to thank Minister Willis-Ginari for his intervention and for the stress again on least developed countries and the imperative of financing. Let us now call on Minister Valganandran, who is the Climate and Environment Director at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office in the United Kingdom. Director, over to you please. Thank you, Inga. And thank you actually for that very brief temporary promotion that you gave me. I'm very grateful. It's the fastest I've ever been promoted. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everybody. It's really great to be part of this meeting. I just wanted to say how terrific it is to be in a meeting where everybody's talking about the time I've been in a meeting like this. And I think that just goes to the need for this group of adaptation finance champions. And as Kitty said, I hope over time more and more colleagues are going to be joining us. Look, one of the good things about speaking at the end is everybody's pretty much said the things I wanted to say. And colleagues have spoken about why we need more adaptation finance. What the IPCC6 report said, what we're seeing every day now is a lot of diversity, but most importantly, what we've heard from developing countries, particularly around the need for more finance. So look, I was just going to say a few things. First, from a UK perspective, we've long been committed to a strong balance in our climate finance. We're increasing our climate finance to 11.6 billion pounds over the next five years. That's a doubling on our previous five-year commitment. And on average, we spend about 45% and like others, the vast majority of that is grants to low-income countries. And we've also been a strong advocate of increasing climate finance among other bilateral donors. We did that through our G7 presidency this year, and also the international system. So that includes the climate multilaterals and the multilateral development banks. And we've seen some good progress on that, I think, recently, but there's still so much to do. And that's why we were really keen to be part of this group and to be part of a coalition of partners who are keen to keep championing this issue, not just to COP, but beyond COP as well. And as we do that, I guess I just wanted to say three things that I think we need to bear in mind. The first is, this shouldn't be a zero-sum game. We shouldn't be reducing the mitigation spend to increase the adaptation spend because we all know that we need more mitigation. We need more mitigation, otherwise the adaptation bill is going to be even higher in the future. So I think Kitty made this point. What we need to be doing is increasing overall climate finance. We need to get to the 100 billion, exceed the 100 billion. And then within that, the share of adaptation needs to be higher. So that was the first point I really wanted to make. This isn't about robbing Peter for Paul. It's about everybody kind of growing the whole pot. The second point, Inga, I wanted to make, really picks up on a point you made, I think, although you didn't make it in this context, I'm not sure one size fits all approach works but it's different donors. They work in different regions on different issues and they use different instruments. And Inga, you mentioned that, you know, with adaptation quite often, it's quite hard to generate the financial return in the same way as I think renewable. So I think we really have to consider that adaptation is a different type of intervention quite often to lots of the mitigation side. And so we do need to think quite carefully about how we finance that and where that finance comes from. So I just wanted to make that point again about not being necessarily a one size fits all. And then the third and last thing I really wanted to say is that adaptation is about doing development but doing it differently. And it's that doing development part I wanted to focus on. And I mean, many colleagues will know, you know, that the principles that underlie good development have been honed over many years. The principles like country ownership, aligning to national plans, donors, coordinating around those plans. And I think those principles should apply as much to adaptation as to development really with the important added dimension of being locally led. And I think that's obviously key for adaptation. And I really wanted to just sort of mention here the UK Fiji Task Force which we launched on the back of the Climate and Development Ministerial that we hosted in March. And this task force is really all about trying to do that to make climate action, to improve, I guess, the planning for climate action and then the streamlining the way we support that. And I hope we have more to say on that at COP26. So, Inga, I'll perhaps stop there. I'm conscious people have heard from us a lot. So I'll stop there and just perhaps end by saying how terrific it is to be part of this group. And we're really delighted as the UK to be part of it and to kind of help push ahead this really important cause. So with that, back to you Inga. Thank you very, very much, Will. And may my prediction in your future come through. Look, we've had a fabulous list of speakers and we began listening from Minister Brompe who spoke and launched, officially launched the Group of Champions Fund Adaptation Finance and spoke to the imperative of leading by example of leaning in on LDCs and SIDS. Then we heard from a low-lying country. We heard from Minister Kitty van der Heiden who were, of course, they live this. And so it should be no surprise for us to hear that they're already allocating more than 50% but that they're now two adaptation in terms of their grant financing. And it is also geared to the LDCs but now stepping into this group of champions and flying the flag together with Ireland. And we noted, of course, that there would be 25 million euros to the adaptation funds for LDCs, which we celebrate. We heard the recorded message from Minister Mortensen who spoke about the fact that 60% of the grant-based climate finance will go to adaptation. We heard from Sweden emphasizing that link, as I mentioned, between environment, between biodiversity and climate and the returns that are generated in this regard. And we heard from Minister Scenari about also the investments have been made at home and the emphasis on finance ministers, coalition, where together with Indonesia, they are working to increase the attention to this. And finally, we heard some wise words from Val Gunandran who spoke to these. This cannot be a zero-sum game. This is about increasing the parts but living up to what we promised in Paris in that these two imperatives, adaptation mitigation would be in balance but that we also have to understand that it's not necessarily the same type of investments. There'll probably have to be more public investments but you can also mesh them with good agricultural infrastructure, good investments in other sectors that will give the adaptation return. So with that then, I wish to express my strong and sincere thanks to ministers present here and for their keen commitment. There's a lot of chat here and I do encourage everyone to read it. Basically, ministers are calling for others to join this group of champions and please consider joining and calling for increased finance, putting your money into finance not by taking it away from mitigation, of course, ensuring that the least developed countries are those that see the benefit. And in the comments, I just want to highlight that there are community groups and there are women's groups and there are activists who are active in least developed countries who are very, very keen to engage and understand how this will go forward. Now, as I thank out this brilliant group, let me then give a warm welcome to a number of strong champions who will now come up and speak and I think we are good on time so it gives me great pleasure, therefore, to introduce the first speaker, who is Mr. Pento Teshering and he is the lead negotiator from the Kingdom of Bhutan and that is a very happy place so we look forward to hearing from Mr. Teshering who is attending live all the way from Nairobi to Bhutan, we go now. Over to you, sir. Thank you, Madam Inger. Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, as the chair of the least developed countries group in, I mean, negotiation, it is my pleasure to speak at this important event on accelerating adaptation finance. Globally, the number of climate disasters and adaptation needs are rising drastically. We are witnessing that repeated events of disaster have significant and detrimental effects on the economic, social and environmental conditions of LDCs. Climate change has already moved from science to reality and its impacts are getting worse and more frequent. The LDCs and our people are the poorest and the among most vulnerable in the world and we are struggling to deal with these impacts. Our populations are particularly vulnerable and disproportionately impacted. So when this crisis hit our shores, they hit us hard. Both climate change, the loss of nature, the COVID-19 are aggravating existing challenges, setting back sustainable development efforts. We recognize that business as usual approaches to deal with the climate crisis are not working in our countries. Already even at just one degree Celsius of warming, the impacts are devastating. If we cannot limit warming to 1.5 degree Celsius as agreed in Paris, the impacts will rapidly increase. I would like to stress that adaptation is critical for us, not optional. And our priority is to improve our ability to adapt to the effects of climate change and build resilience to the climate shocks. These, there is a need to scale up adaptation finance for developing countries to meet the needs of most vulnerable. We also need to build our local and national institutional capacity to strengthen our local and traditional knowledge and technology to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. However, less than 10% of finance from global climate funds is dedicated to local action. This is something not acceptable. Those in the poorest countries on the frontline of climate change are not receiving the support they need to survive. If this continues, we will fail to address the climate crisis. Clearly, things need to change. More financial resources are needed for local government, communities, enterprises, and the actors working at the local level to implement their own climate solutions. To tackle these challenges, LDC Group has stepped forward. We launched our long-term 2050 vision at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019. This vision is for LDC's to be on climate resilient development pathways by 2030 and deliver net zero emissions by 2050 to ensure our society's economies and ecosystem thrive. Our vision is not an empty statement. LDC let initiatives are already delivering on this vision. For example, LDC initiatives on adaptation and resilience aims for 70% of climate finance to reach local level by 2030. We also call on the international community, including development partners, civil society, climate funds, and the private sector, and all of us here today to follow our lead. As we get closer to COP26, I look forward to hearing more commitments to support climate adaptation from developed countries. Despite our respective differences, climate change will impact us all. The planet is that what we have in government and we must all work together in the fight to save our planet. Thank you and touch it a little bit. Over to you, Madam Inger. Thank you very much, Director Teshering. And we do appreciate the strong call that you are making for others to come into this fund and for the absolute imperative that people step up on this to protect the most vulnerable. And speaking of vulnerable small island states, therefore, it gives me great pleasure to give the floor to the Honorable Colonel Charles Junior, who is a Minister of Housing, Urban Renewal, and Environment and Climate Change of Jamaica. Sir, you have the floor. It is my wonderful pleasure. Good morning to you and to all of our distinguished colleagues and Excellencies. And Happy Climate Week there in New York City. I am honored to represent the people and government of Jamaica today to participate in the launch of this Champions Group on Adaptation Finance. And we are pleased that our developed country partners and providers of climate finance have taken this very bold move to stand with climate-vulnerable countries like Jamaica, another small island developing states across the world, and that they are responding to our priorities in this way. Indeed, as we have repeatedly said, while increased ambition is necessary and laudable, it is rendered useless without financing that is predictable, accessible, and equitable. We trust that this meeting is going to serve as preliminary evidence of the global shift in train to make climate financing for adaptation and also mitigation fit for purpose. We remain hopeful too that loss and damage will be a standard feature of our financing architecture going forward. And so my friends, on behalf of the government and people of Jamaica, I want to offer sincere congratulations firstly to the group and to its senior ministers represented here today. The list of names are too long to list out. But to everyone, and as you are aware, there is really no shortage of climate ambition in Jamaica. We have submitted our revised nationally determined contributions and we have ensured that in that, we have a broader sectoral coverage and a deeper commitment to reducing emissions in the energy sector up to 28.5% by 2030. And next week, we will be launching our MDC implementation plan and inviting our partners to join with us in its execution. In addition to that, we have also advanced preparation for a long-term, low-carbon and climate resilient strategy, which is our pathway here in Jamaica to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. We are completing our national adaptation plan, which identifies our sector needs to build resilience and to help us to generate new opportunities for entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainable development. The government of Jamaica is also taking steps towards floating a green bond here in Jamaica. We have a very strong stock exchange and so we expect that we will be able to explore further benefits that can accrue through the green bond and from the carbon market. On the latter point, Jamaica was the first small island developing state in the Caribbean to register a project under the UNFCCC's Clean Development Mechanism and that project is a successful one named Wigton Wind Farm, phases one and two, and it is the largest wind farm in the English-speaking Caribbean to date. This was done in 2006 and we have been able to successfully trade carbon credits under an emissions reduction purchase agreement with the Dutch government. It goes without saying then that achieving ambitious targets requires and will cause us to continue to have bold, innovative actions from major emitters and our developed country partners like those convening this informal champions group. And all of this is for us to ensure that there is available, accessible, flexible and predictable sources of adaptation finance to support the efforts of developing countries like Jamaica. To echo the position taken by our prime minister, the most honorable Andrew Holness at the leaders summit in April, the income per capital model and the high cost of debt servicing these need to be restructured if we are to allow vulnerable middle income countries like Jamaica to access secondary financing on the terms similar to those extended to low income countries. Without that, I must tell you, colleagues, we will not be able to translate our NDCs and its stated adaptation co-benefits into any real cogent, tangible and sustainable investment model for resilience building. That is what we want to do. So we must make the changes now. Jamaica therefore welcomes the launch of this champions group ahead of COP 26, which we consider to be a timely and strategic move that will all go well for the future of adaptation finance for developing small islands like Jamaica. I want to thank you and wish you all well. Thank you very, very much to the Honorable Charles Junior Minister of Housing, Urban Renewal, Environment and Climate Change from Nairobi to Jamaica upon greetings and thank you for the very strong statement that you make and the absolute imperatives of showing solidarity and investing in adaptation. Thank you very much for the great point. Also because we are a little bit late because of technical issues in the beginning, we are going to view a three minute video pre-recorded on the climate and development and sterile process, including links to the finance agenda. In the meantime, while you enjoy the video, please also read some of the amazing comments of the champions group. The need to adapt to protect people and nature from the effects of our changing climate have never been more acute. This year, I have witnessed the ongoing effects of hurricane Irma in Barbuda. I have spoken to communities displaced by melting glaciers in Nepal. And I have spoken to ministers in Ethiopia about managing the effects of low custom floods on their agriculture. The World Meteorological Association tells us that finance has increased five-fold in 50 years, resulting in loss of infrastructure, livelihoods, hopes, dreams, and in many cases, very sadly, life itself. We know that these effects will get worse even as we continue to reduce emissions to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. So where we cannot prevent, we must protect. And we must do so now. But that requires finance and currently adaptation finance is woefully inadequate, making up just 20% of climate finance at the last count. This must be rectified. That is why the United Nations Secretary General has recently called for half for climate change finance to go to adaptation. And why the UK has joined with Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland to form this champions group, which is committed to delivering a balance between adaptation and mitigation in public finance contributions. And I urge all providers of climate finance, including donors and MDBs to join the group. And those who have not already made a commitment to balance, please do so. Yet we know that as well as dealing with the balance, we must also deal with the fundamental issues, including increasing the sums available and improving access to finance. That is why I have consistently called on the UK's fellow donor countries to mobilize the $100 billion a year in climate finance that we have long promised developing countries. And it is why in March the UK cop presidency held the climate and development ministerial meeting, bringing together governments, development banks and others. And this addressed vital issues like access to finance, responding to climate impacts, debt and adaptation finance. And at the UN to assess the progress made since that meeting, which includes the launch of a task force and access to finance led by the UK and Fiji. I hope we will see ambitious finance commitments made at the UN General Assembly including on adaptation finance. And particularly commitments that honor the promises made by leaders of the G7 to increase finance that meets the $100 billion target, including boosting adaptation funds. But as I say, finance must work as much to protect as to prevent. This champions group will play an important role in making that a reality. So let's come together, redress the balance and protect the most vulnerable from the effects of climate change. Thank you. Allow me to thank the right honorable Alak Shama who is president-designate of course of COP26 and also to thank you for his tireless work leading up to the COP. He's told us about what he's seen firsthand during his travels and obviously of the imperative of that financial commitment as well as of the UK's tireless work to get us to COP26 and to raise awareness with this. And let me now go to some reflections from the front lines. And here it gives me great pleasure to introduce Ms. Angeline Popineau who is the CEO of the Seashells Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust. She will come on now and speak a few words reflecting on the statements that we have all heard today. Ms. Popineau, over to you. Greetings everyone from the Seashells and thank you very much. So I hope everybody knows the Seashells is a small island developing state in the western Indian Ocean and it is an absolute honor and pleasure to attend this panel that has been providing us with optimism and hope. It's certainly great news as we move ahead with COP26 at the time when many countries, developing countries have been emphasizing the need for more financing inclusion and supporting the most vulnerable. I must start with expressing my gratitude for all your leadership. You have finally heard our call acknowledging that adaptation is not a choice acknowledging the need for building resilience and the need to ensure that there is access to SIDS and LDCs and I must admit the little bias and the emphasis on SIDS but here we are. It is very much welcome to have this emphasis on quantity as well as quality. We have heard from others on the call that we're not looking to channel funding away from mitigation but to ensure that there is additional funding that is being channeled to adaptation. But today we've also read concerns on the chat the need to ensure that the funds are accessible and inclusive and reaching the very people who need it the most. It is certainly one thing to have funds available but quite another to have it accessible but what are the keys to success to achieving quantity and quality? There is much to be discussed and we hope the conversation does not end here but just a few thoughts on my side. Climate finance providers and the people who are affected have to be working more closely together. We need to be co-defining and co-designing funding priorities or these requests for proposals or requests for funds that are put together. We need to be embarking on meaningful equitable partnerships. For a moment let's think of those key performance indicators. We've heard the discussions about having more multilateral development banks involved and we often know that these financial deals are often tied to key performance indicators. But what we hear from people on the ground is also that and on the front line is also that the KPI has to take into consideration impact on the ground. That shows that communities are in fact building resilience and capacities to adapt to the impacts of climate change. As the CEO of the Seychelles Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust, a public private trust fund has been managing the proceeds of two blended finance mechanisms including the Seychelles Conservation and the Sovereign Lubon. It is important to emphasize that we explore adaptation or financing for adaptation that we ensure that it is sustainable financing. Long-term, equitable, effective, built-in capacity building for local communities and moving away from these one-off donations. It is great to hear from ministers about the emphasis on nature-based solutions, protecting communities and people, but I really enjoyed the emphasis on women and other marginalized groups, thinking of the most vulnerable. It would be remiss of me having been given the opportunity to speak, not to raise my voice for my own country, the Seychelles. Part of a group of small island developing states that seemingly falls victim to this categorization of being a high-income country that completely violates our vulnerabilities and therefore making finance less accessible to us. Just to put this more clearly, with so few of us, a population of 90,000 people building a port that will be able to adapt to the to be resilient to the impacts of climate change is going to be a heavier burden on each and everyone compared to a country with a larger population and judging us by GDP and vulnerability. But it is great to hear that the group is already growing, to hear that new members are already expressing their willingness to join. It is giving us much hope ahead of COP26. So to end, I'd like to express my thanks to those who are leading by examples. And as leaders, we hope so many more follow. I thank you. Thank you so much to you and you should know that there are people in the comment line saying, great job, Angelique. So well done. And many, many thanks for this very helpful reflection on what we have heard. I am aware that we have a couple of minutes behind and we have kept Minister waiting for us. So let me quickly go back to Ireland then and reintroduce and thank Minister Bromby for staying with us. Minister of State for overseas development and we will now move off at the beginning and who will now give us some remarks. Over to you, Sir. Well, thank you very much. I obviously want to make some concluding remarks. But just to start by saying it was a really interesting, I thought, exchange of views. A really interesting discussion. So many people I thought contributed. And I really found it a very, very beneficial discussion. So obviously just on behalf of the champions group on adaptation finance, just to say a couple of concluding remarks at the start of introducing the group, I made comment on our current membership of six and was delighted obviously to make that point about the Germany has now announced its intention, its intention to join. We spoke together really in this session as bilateral finance providers who want to contribute to the development of climate adaptation finance, particularly to the least developed countries and the small and developing states. And I think that came through in so many of the contributions in sharing our priorities and laying our commitments on the table. We are prepared obviously to lead by example. We commit to a very balanced approach in our own public climate finance as you've heard today. And as we listen today, I heard really valuable comments, we've just literally just heard from from our last speaker there about the gaps and needs in climate finance. We've heard about that financing bottlenecks and the barriers to quality adaptation action on the ground. We've heard I think anyway, excellent suggestions on the way to unblock adaptation finance and improve the efficiencies. And there is much I think to follow up on from this event and to address some of the things that we've been trying to do to start to bring others on board. We've had German is the announcement today, but the champions group on adaptation finance, which we are launching formally today at this event should not remain a group of six or seven. We invite again other finance providers to join us in this effort to increase the share of adaptation finance in your public climate finance and to join us very much in adaptation finance. So with that, I will conclude my remarks. Thank you, chair. Thank you very, very much minister. And thank you very much for staying with us and for being such a champion. We are very, very grateful and you emphasize and that this group should not remain small. I think we all echo this, but we thank you for the leadership that you and the other ministers have shown. And also for staying a few minutes over your over the hour, which I'm very grateful for. I'll hand it back over to Angelique, who is now seeing a fan club forming out in the text. So Angelique, any final comments or observations from you? Thank you very much. No, no final observations only to say and echo what's been said. We encourage others. We are happy to be part of the discussion. This is a partnership. We need to take global action. And I'm certainly keen and I know others are to participate and make sure that it is quantity and it is quality that really supports the most vulnerable in the world. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you very, very much. And so it is my distinct honor and pleasure to close out this seminar and this launch of the group of champions of adaptation finance. I'm sure that there's a lot of interest. We've heard that adaptation. We heard from Angelique adaptation is not a choice. She was the one who emphasized a quality and quantity matters and the funds have to be available and accessible in the commentary we heard. Well, it's very important that this funding is available across society that there's local capacity that track of that finance contract is easy to announce but let it be delivered at the grassroots level. And so I think it is. We also heard from humanitarians that actually to prevent crisis and to prevent catastrophes, this will be critical. We heard that it is important that we hit what we promised back in Copenhagen. I'm old enough to remind you because I was there back in COP 15 where we said we would hit $100 billion by 2020. We now need to live up to that promise and it is critical that the funding that will go to adaptation we heard does not take it away from mitigation. Women and marginalized groups need to be in focus and obviously LDCs and SIDS. So with this then, a warm thanks to everyone for being here. We are going to meet in Glasgow I'm sure and whether virtually otherwise I look forward to seeing this group grow as we just heard from the Irish minister and to all from beautiful Nairobi, Kenya. I send you the best of wishes for a good day and continued safe health. Very good and many, many thanks everyone. Bye.