1. Distinguished Mr. President, Chairs of the Subsidiary Bodies, Madame Executive Secretary, colleagues,

2. The Republic of Guinea is honoured to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China. We assure you of the Group's commitment to contribute constructively to the success of COP26 for the collective benefit of our peoples and future generations. We would like to express sincere appreciation to the United Kingdom and the people of Glasgow for their generous hosting of COP26, despite the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has imposed.

3. The Group looks forward to concluding the work that has been pending since COP25 in Madrid in December 2019 despite the restrictions and limitations imposed by the pandemic on our modalities of work. In doing so, our proceedings must be balanced, inclusive, participatory, and transparent.

4. Sustainable development and poverty eradication are overriding priorities for developing countries.We come to this COP with a deep sense of urgency because we are deeply concerned about the increasing impacts of climate change on our socio-economic circumstances and development priorities and trajectories.

5. As the G77's Ministers stated in their November 2020 Ministerial Statement in New York, the Paris Agreement, adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is the collective achievement of all Parties. It seeks to enhance the implementation of the Convention, in accordance with its objectives, principles and provisions, in particular on the basis of equity, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances, needs and priorities, and the right to development, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.

6. These principles are fundamental to our work. The balanced package in the Paris Agreement with respect to mitigation, adaptation, the provision of the means of implementation and support to developing countries, enhanced transparency, and international cooperation must be upheld and are not to be renegotiated nor reinterpreted.

7. The Group expects at this COP that developed countries fill deficiencies in their implementation of their pre-2020 commitments. Developed countries must undertake and increase the economy- wide absolute emission reduction targets in their NDCs and scale up their provision of support to developing countries.

8. Climate finance is key to success here at COP26 and the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement. Long-standing climate finance commitments such as the USD100 billion goal by 2020 must now be fulfilled. We cannot rely on unfulfilled promises. We must see tangible actions from developed countries at this COP that translate into enhanced climate finance flows that are demand-driven and responsive to the needs of developing countries. These include real progress in our negotiations relating to the new finance goal. We note that the recently adopted Needs Determination Report and the Biennial Assessment and Overview on Climate Finance Flows from the Standing Committee on Finance have given us some key benchmarks on the scale of financing
 
that would need to be mobilized and delivered to support developing countries in implementing their NDCs.

9. For the Group, financial resources as well as technology development and transfer and capacity building are crucial enablers of climate action. Enhanced ambition must ome with enhanced support. Provision of this support from developed countries is a binding commitment under the Convention and reconfirmed in the Paris Agreement. There are nearly 15 agenda items on finance at this COP; as such, no finance negotiations under different agenda items should be organized in parallel.

10. For the Group, Long Term Finance discussions are not about having an agenda of workshops and dialogues but should focus on how the long-standing climate finance commitments of developed countries established under the Convention and its Paris Agreement are being implemented. We expect that COP26 will decide on the continuation of the LTF Work Programme to contribute to scaling-up post-2020 climate financing and monitor the accomplishment of the USD 100 billion goal up to 2020 and to 2025.

11. The provision and mobilization of finance, technology and capacity building must be done in a transparent manner, must be new, additional, predictable, and consider the actual needs and priorities of developing countries. These must be reflected in the reporting of backward or forward- looking information under the Convention and its Paris Agreement, as well as in the initiation of the process in Glasgow to establish a new collective quantified climate finance goal based on a floor of US$ 100 billion per year.

12. The reporting of the provision of finance by developed countries to developing countries should be improved, given concerns that climate finance is translating into increased external debt of developing countries. This includes improving the reporting of grant equivalency, climate specificity, and how developed countries are taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries and the provision of grant-based public resources under Article 9.4 and 9.5 of the Paris Agreement. The needs of developing countries with respect to financial support for loss and damage should also be discussed, including reporting by developed countries on the provision of such support.

13. The establishment of the new collective quantified finance goal must be the result of a transparent and inclusive process that is Party- driven, participatory, easily quantifiable, and concrete. The Group has been pressing for this process to begin since 2017. COP26 must result in a timeline that ensures the participation of all; that the new goal will reflect the needs of developing countries; and that it includes both a quantitative and qualitative component, including specific goals for adaptation and linkages to the Adaptation Fund to ensure predictability of financing for this Fund that is very important to developing countries.

14. The Group also wishes to reiterate the importance of ensuring that climate finance is not politicized and that all eligible developing countries can access all available financial resources of the implementing entities of the Financial Mechanism of the Convention and its Paris Agreement.

15. Adaptation is a critical priority for developing countries and must be treated in a balanced manner compared to mitigation actions. Our work on the global goal on adaptation under the Paris Agreement must advance. Support for adaptation actions in developing countries will be increasingly crucial for developing countries as the adverse effects of climate change scale up in the future. Hence, we would like to see concrete and tangible outcomes from COP26 on the provision of public, grant-based finance by developed countries to developing countries for adaptation action, including to formulate and implement NAPs as stipulated by the Convention.

16. Adaptation planning continues to be a priority to developing countries. It forms a critical foundation for building resilience in our countries. Progress on adaptation planning in our
 
countries has not been encouraging as many developing countries have still not formulated or implemented their adaptation plans.

17. Fully realized technology development and transfer is of vital importance to improve resilience for developing countries. The Technology Mechanism must be strengthened to serve such purpose and to implement the technology framework. We are deeply concerned with the slow progress made in climate-related technology transfer to developing countries and the challenges faced by the operational arm of the technology mechanism, the CTCN in securing stable and sustainable financial resources. We call on developed countries to enhance their efforts in technology transfer and strengthen their support to CTCN through the provision of financial and other resources, to enable enhanced actions on technology development and transfer in implementing the Convention and its Paris Agreement. We look forward to satisfactory results from a CTCN Donor Roundtable on 8 November 2021 in Glasgow as a first step to such enhanced support.

18. Capacity building is a critical enabler for developing countries to meet their climate actions. Significant progress has been registered at the previous sessions and we hope that we can build on that to finalise the work at hand. We look forward to engaging constructively with the view of concluding the fourth comprehensive review of the implementation of the framework for capacity- building in developing countries under the Kyoto Protocol and the Annual progress report of the Paris Committee on Capacity Building for 2020 and 2021, including its recommendations to the COP and the CMA.

19. On the Koronivia work programme on agriculture, we believe the discussions that we had for the last four years should pave the way for a tangible output after the conclusion of the Koronivia road map. Parties should report back to COP26 on the final outcome to define the way forward for implementation focusing on enhancing adaptation and adaptation co-benefits in agriculture, while promoting sustainable development and increasing productivity of the agricultural sector to ensure food security in all countries, particularly in developing countries, to fight hunger and eradicate poverty, taking into consideration the diversity of the agricultural systems around the globe and the differences in scale.

20. On response measures, the work plan activities of the response measure forum and the KCI should be fully implemented. Time lost to date and activities not implemented in 2020 must be fully made up. The Forum and the KCI need to be given sufficient time and space to advance their work and ensure effective treatment of response measures-related issues under the Paris Agreement.

21. The agenda items on loss and damage under the COP, CMA and SBs are important to the Group. This includes the report of the Warsaw Implementation Mechanism on Loss and Damage and on the joint governance of the COP and CMA over the WIM. The treatment of loss and damage- related agenda items under the COP and the CMA must be balanced to reflect their joint governance. COP26 should deliver on ensuring that the WIM through its Executive Committee and the Santiago Network becomes an effective mechanism under the Convention and its Paris Agreement for addressing the needs of developing countries, especially for enhanced action and support in relation to loss and damage, including loss and damage-related financing and technology transfer.

22. Our work on transparency must be completed as per the mandate. Developing countries' best efforts at reporting at a higher standard of transparency, once the reporting tools are completed, must be accompanied by real support from developed countries. Access by developing countries to adequate and timely support for transparency should be facilitated. We also call for Annex I Parties to submit their reports required under the Convention in a timely manner, including reports that were missing from previous reporting cycles.

23. The negotiations with respect to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement should be concluded at COP26 in a manner that ensures that there is a balanced outcome under Articles 6.2, 6.4, and 6.8, ensures environmental integrity, avoids double counting, promotes sustainable development, provides adequate and predictable funds for adaptation, and enables future cooperative arrangements among Parties through the nationally appropriate use of both market and non-market approaches.

24. The Group of 77 and China in the spirit of inclusiveness and leaving no one behind calls for the full and effective implementation of the Enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender and Climate Change and its Gender Action Plan. We call for continued efforts in ensuring gender parity in national delegations and in all constituted bodies of the Convention and its Paris Agreement.

25. The Group looks forward to the start of the first Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement. We wish to highlight the importance of having diverse, balanced, and comprehensive inputs for the GST in all the thematic areas, particularly from developing countries and the need to facilitate the participation of non-party stakeholders from developing countries. We expect that the GST will be undertaken in a holistic, systemic, comprehensive, and facilitative manner, considering all thematic areas, including mitigation, adaptation, the means of implementation and support, the consequences of response measures, and loss and damage, in the light of equity and the best available science. The GST process should enable us to look backward at implementation gaps and challenges, including with respect to historical responsibility and pre-2020 implementation of the Convention, and to look forward in terms of what must be done and how these would be addressed in a systemic and transformative way.

26. The Group's Ministerial Statement of November 2020 reaffirmed that the imposition of coercive economic measures, including unilateral sanctions, against developing countries does not contribute to economic and social development, including dialogue and understanding among countries. These actions adversely affect the capabilities of developing countries to finance their efforts in mitigation and adaptation to climate change and hinder their right to access available resources.

27. The program budget for the biennium 2022-2023 should reflect a balance between adaptation and mitigation, with the adaptation-related budget being funded from the core budget rather than be subject to the uncertainty of the supplementary budget.

28. For the Group, it is also important to consider how to best advance ocean-climate and land-climate issues and solutions in relation to the work and processes under the UNFCCC.

29. Finally, rest assured, Mr. Presidency, that the Group of 77 and China will work with you and our partners for the successful conclusion of COP26, in a manner that moves us all forward in meeting the objective of the Convention and the goals of its Paris Agreement in an equitable manner that respects the principles of the Convention and the balanced package under its Paris Agreement.

        Thank you, Mr. President.