PARIS, June 19 (AFP): World leaders will gather in Paris this week with ambitions to reimagine global financing for a new era shaped by climate change, as a cascade of crises swamps debt-burdened countries.
French President Emmanuel Macron has said the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact is aimed at building a "new consensus" to meet the interlinked global targets of tackling poverty, curbing planet-heating emissions and protecting nature.
Ideas on the table range from taxation on shipping, fossil fuels or financial transactions, to innovations in lending and a structural rethink of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
France says the two-day summit, which begins on Thursday and will bring together some 50 heads of state and government, was more of a platform for ideas sharing ahead of a cluster of major economic and climate meetings in the coming months.
In particular, the French Presidency said on Friday it wanted to give "political impetus" to the idea of an international tax on carbon emissions from shipping, with hopes of a breakthrough at a meeting of the International Maritime Organization later in June.
With trust in short supply over broken climate financing promises from richer countries, developing nations are looking for tangible progress.
The V20 group of countries on the climate frontlines, which now includes 58 member nations, has said restructuring the global financial system to align with climate targets must be completed by 2030.
"It's great we are talking about the international financial architecture, but we have to see timelines and we have not seen those timelines," Sarah Jane Ahmed, V20 global lead and finance adviser, told AFP.
Leaders arriving in Paris to champion that message include Kenyan President William Ruto and Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo, as well as Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who has become a powerful
advocate for reform and will speak at the summit opening on Thursday.
