Guest Blog: 12 Observations following the 2019 UNSG Climate Summit and FfD Summit.

Zaheer Fakir -  written as a global citizen and sustainable development practitioner

Disclaimer: These points are merely my observations and in no way whatsoever am I passing any judgment as to whether they are good or bad. Its is for you to draw your own conclusions.

My observations are:

1. Taxation, Debt, blended finance, capital markets, Bankers and Capitalist are the climate change Messiahs.
2. Grant's and Development assistance are becoming threatened and rare species while loans and other non-grant instruments are proliferating at scale.
3. The historical sinners absolve themselves of their original sin and the victims of their actions are being made responsible to share their burden and build their resilience.
4. The notion of vulnerability has been incentivised, so much so that it has become akin to cannibalism in a time of climate finance famine. 
5. The branches and leaves believe they are more vulnerable than their roots because they believe that they are the only ones exposed to the elements while the roots sit snuggly and well-resourced under the ground.
6. Global policy and action on climate change and development is being derived, proposed and determined by “Well Resourced Institutes” and donor-funded “Think-Tanks”.
7. Developing Countries’ negotiations are not being led by or conducted by the children of their soil anymore but by foreign-funded “professional diplomats”
8. The human act of providing has given way to the process of mobilization involving greater demand for co-financing and leveraging in order to meet Developed Countries’ collective finance goal.
9. We chant the mantra of “Moving from the billions to the oceans of Trillions” while realizing that oceans have water and water everywhere but nor a drop to drink.
10. Multilateralism has transformed from every country has a voice to voices only to the highest bidders.
11. Action speaks louder than words yet words garner more financing than action.
12. We are able to mobilize 100 times more finance to restore a single building than to restore and protect the forests of our planet.