From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
As the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) in Antalya, Türkiye, draws near, Mexico, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Türkiye and Australia (MIKTA) have called for access to financing for Nigeria and other developing countries.
The call by the MIKTA countries was part of the efforts to transform climate commitments into concrete reality.
The main focus of the forthcoming summit is how to tackle a long-standing roadblock of making climate financing easily accessible to developing nations who are mostly in need of it.
Speaking in Abuja, the countries emphasised that climate change was not an abstract future threat for Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and climate-vulnerable regions across Africa.
They were of the opinion that from severe droughts and desertification to devastating coastal erosion and flooding in nations like Nigeria and Indonesia, communities were feeling the impacts firsthand.
The envoys of the respected countries stated that protecting the populations required matching environmental ambition with immediate and practical support.
The envoys further said that securing a sustainable future required an overhauled financial architecture, adding that developing countries frequently faced crippling obstacles when seeking funding, with complex application procedures and fragmented funding systems, including stifling debt pressures, limited fiscal space, high costs of capital, strict reporting requirements and delayed disbursements.
They, however, said that to rectify the situation, there was the need for a new action plan championing simpler approval processes, targeted capacity-building and robust public-private partnerships to scale up investment in renewable energy, resilient infrastructure and ocean conservation.
They concluded that as the road to Antalya continued, cross-regional collaboration such as uniting the voices of Africa, the Pacific and beyond was essential, adding that by bridging the gap between international pledges and on-the-ground execution, COP31 aimed to ensure that climate finance becomes a powerful, practical instrument for global prosperity, resilience and survival.