Calling an ambitious recovery from COVID-19 that sets the world on a path to limiting global warming to 1.5 C “both possible and necessary,” the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) has released a raft of economic and environmental commitments to guide its members’ own economies through a resilient recovery, and provide a benchmark for their international peers.

The HAC’s Statement on Resilient Recovery calls for the “largest possible percentage” of fiscal recovery spending to be dedicated to the green economy and low carbon professions, with a target of 60% of overall recovery spending.

Welcoming the U.N. Secretary General’s Six Climate-related Actions for COVID-19, the statement commits its signatories to maintaining existing environmental protection standards and emission reduction goals without exception. It also addresses the need to ensure that bailouts “include appropriate conditions to protect the public and planet’s interest,” and to remove fossil fuel subsidies, phase out coal, and support a just transition for those working in the fossil fuel economy.

The Statement calls for solidarity with developing countries to ensure they have the resources to recover from the triple threat of COVID-19, its economic impact, and the effects of climate change, which are already being felt today. It promotes international solidarity on climate action, including through swaps of debt for nature. It calls on donor governments to honor commitments to provide concessional climate financing and debt relief, and on development finance institutions to deploy “all available tools to ensure that developing countries have the necessary liquidity to tackle both COVID-19 and a green recovery.”

“It has been important to see such a wide chorus of voices calling for a green recovery from COVID-19, but we have to turn words to action. Now is the time to specify in concrete terms what that sentiment looks like in practice, and then hold ourselves and our partners to those commitments,” said Christopher Loeak, Minister in Assistance to the President and Environment Minister of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which convenes the HAC. “We look forward to continuing to work with all stakeholders to ensure this pivotal economic opportunity for a resilient and climate-proof future is not missed,” said Marcel Beukeboom, Climate Envoy of the Netherlands.

“We need the global community to be ambitious and unwavering in aligning its financial decisions with the requirements of science and international solidarity. We must place green and blue jobs at the heart of our recovery efforts in order to respond effectively to our joint climate, biodiversity and health crisis,” said Andrea Meza Murillo, Minister of Environment of Costa Rica.

The statement will be open for all countries to sign onto until December. The full statement is available here.

Contact: Leah Wawro, High Ambition Coalition Secretariat, leah.wawro@highambitioncoalition.org