Climate and Development Ministerial 3: overview
Updated 11 December 2023
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Ahead of COP28, the UK will co-chair the Climate and Development Ministerial with UAE as the incoming COP Presidency, Malawi, and Vanuatu.
This marks the third successive Climate and Development Ministerial co-chaired by the UK with climate vulnerable countries since its launch as part of the UK’s COP26 Presidency in 2021.
The ministerial is supported by an expert group convened by Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
The ministerial ensures the voices of the most climate vulnerable countries are heard by convening countries, financial institutions, and civil society to discuss challenges and priorities in these communities.
The Climate and Development ministerials cover 4 key priority issues:
- access to climate finance
- responding to the impacts of climate change
- quantity, quality, and composition of climate finance
- fiscal space and debt sustainability
The focus of this year’s event, which is taking place on 29 October 2023 (ahead of pre-COP) in Abu Dhabi, will be on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of adaptation finance provision.
Previous ministerials
Climate and Development Ministerial 1, 2021
The UK hosted the first virtual Climate and Development Ministerial on 31 March 2021.
Participating countries, multilateral institutions, wider civil society, and non-participating member states had the opportunity to inform the discussion at the ministerial through a series of preliminary workshops and expert roundtables which explored policy solutions in each issue area. The outputs of these workshops can be seen at Climate and Development Ministeral workshops.
For a readout of the ministerial, see the Climate and Development Ministerial Chair’s Summary.
As a result of this meeting, the Climate Finance Delivery Plan and the Taskforce on Access to Climate Finance were launched, as well as a number of new commitments on finance, mitigation and adaptation. Details can be found in the COP26 finance outcomes.
Climate and Development Ministerial 2, 2022
The second Climate and Development Ministerial took place in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly on 22 September 2022, co-chaired with Rwanda.
Similarly to the first ministerial, initial discussions between country officials and civil society developed the focus of the ministerial to a series of transformational shifts needed to make progress. This included shifting finance to investing behind national platforms, continued reform of the global financial architecture and changing the scale and sources of finance available. A forward plan was developed and can be found at Climate and Development Ministerial Forward Plan.
For a readout, see the Climate and Development Ministerial 2 summary.