The CVF stands for Climate Vulnerable Forum. Founded in 2009 by the Maldives, it is now an international partnership of the 48 countries most vulnerable to climate change in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Together, CVF countries take action and advocate to bring about ambitious action to tackle the global threat of climate change. The Forum’s member governments represent over one billion people highly at risk from the dangers of climate change today.
An entirely online Summit not only eliminates the emissions of an international meeting. Holding a Summit online also increases the inclusivity and transparency of the event, since anyone with an Internet connection can have a similar degree of access to the Summit’s deliberations as a Head of State or Government taking part. The Climate Vulnerable Forum is hoping to demonstrate how much can often be accomplished by making use of solutions that are already available and can be taken advantage of. The online event is also an opportunity for raising awareness and for online communities to engage with the Summit and its themes of climate vulnerability and action.
People everywhere are vulnerable to climate change and increasingly so. Some countries, however, already grapple with significant dangers to human life, well-being and livelihoods. For other nations, decisions taken today have existential ramifications because if climate change is not tackled today, large-scale increases in sea-levels will flood low-lying island countries and territories around the world as glaciers melt into the ocean. When the world adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015, it was decided to review progress towards the goals of the agreement at the end of 2018–this is known as the “Talanoa Dialogue”. It is well known that the current commitments of countries under the Paris Agreement would lead to treble the level of global warming experienced to-date, which would seal the fate of the world’s most vulnerable countries. So the CVF decided to hold a leaders-level Summit to help build leadership support for stronger climate action to support the Paris Agreement’s fulfillment by all its parties.
Active participation in the Summit includes Heads of Governments and Heads of States in addition to leading figures from around the world. Participation in thematic panels are by invitation only, however, anyone can engage with the speakers online by submitting their questions and comments online. Please use the following hashtag #virtualclimatesummit if you would like to join the conversation.
For general enquiries please email us at [email protected]. Media queries should be directed to: [email protected]. For technical assistance and support please send your requests to [email protected]
Videos from international organizations or civil society groups in support or as a contribution to the Summit are welcome. If they meet basic quality standards. Your contributed video may be used for lead-up marketing, or for broadcast as part of a live stream on 22 November 2018, or to live on the website as on-demand content. For technical questions, kindly contact [email protected].
Each thematic session is one-hour long and will be moderated live via web-conferencing involving contributions and discussions from different leaders and international topic experts. Some of the content of these panels will also be pre-recorded. Each panel aims to provide 15-20 minutes as an opportunity for interaction online through questions fielded from Twitter using the CVF Summit hashtag #VirtualClimateSummit
Please stay tuned and constantly check our program on the website for more updates on the speakers taking part with the delivering of national leaders’ statements or as contributors to the Summit’s Thematic Panels.
The CVF Virtual Summit seeks to inject renewed hope for action to fight climate change into international cooperation. It aims to build renewed confidence for the possibility that all nations could take further steps by 2020 to keep vulnerable people everywhere, and the world, safe from climate change. The CVF members will bring the outcome of the Summit to the next conference of the Paris Agreement and UN climate change convention taking place at Katowice, Poland (UNFCCC COP24). The Forum also hopes to carry forward its Summit contribution into 2019 when the United Nations Secretary-General will hold a critical Climate Summit of all UN member states.
In a decision adopted in 2013, the CVF foresaw the possibility of convening a leaders’ Summit once every approximately 5 years. The 2018 CVF Virtual Summit is the Forum’s first leaders’ level Summit.