Climate Vulnerable Forum

Climate Vulnerable Forum
Logo of the Climate Vulnerable Forum
Membership	68 governments (11 founding countries 57 additional members)
Leaders
• Chair	Ghana (2022-2024)
• Previous chairs	Bangladesh (2020-2022) Marshall Islands (2018-2020) Ethiopia (2016–2018) Philippines (2015–2016) Costa Rica (2013–2014) Bangladesh (2011–2013) Kiribati (2010–2011)
• Founding chair	Maldives (2009–2010)
• Secretary General	Mohamed Nasheed
Establishment
• Malé Declaration	10 November 2009
Website TheCVF.org

The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) is a global partnership of countries that are disproportionately affected by the consequences of climate change.^[1] The forum addresses the negative effects of climate change as a result of heightened socioeconomic and environmental vulnerabilities. These countries actively seek a firm and urgent resolution to the current intensification of climate change, domestically and internationally.^[2] The CVF was formed to increase the accountability of industrialized nations for the consequences of global climate change. It also aims to exert additional pressure for action to tackle the challenge, which includes the local action by countries considered susceptible.^[2] Political leaders involved in this partnership are "using their status as those most vulnerable to climate change to punch far above their weight at the negotiating table".^[3] The governments which founded the CVF agree to national commitments to pursue low-carbon development and carbon neutrality.^[4]

The Philippines was the Chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) and oversaw the adoption of the body’s Manila-Paris Declaration^[5] at the Third High-Level Meeting of the Forum in November 2015. The Manila-Paris Declaration articulated the common concerns and commitments of vulnerable countries and urged the strengthening of the UNFCCC goal of limiting warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. During this meeting the membership of the Climate Vulnerable Forum expanded to include 23 new members.^[6] Ethiopia became the first African Chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum during the CVF High-Level Climate Policy Forum held in the Senate of the Philippines in August 2016.^[7]

In 2015, the twenty member countries in a forum chaired by the Philippines launched the official bloc of the forum, the 'V20' or 'Vulnerable Twenty', consisting of 20 nations that are highly affected by catastrophes amplified by climate change. The members of the bloc are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Kiribati, Madagascar, Maldives, Nepal, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Vietnam. During the 2nd V20 Ministerial Dialogue in April 2016 in Washington DC, the V20 recognized the 23 new members that joined the CVF in 2015 as incoming members in the V20 initiative.^[8] These countries are currently and diversely affected by various climate change problems such as super storms, storm surges, droughts, famine due to climate factors, food shortage as by-product of climate change, power cutting, flash floods, mud slides, desertification, heatwaves, reduction of fresh water sources, and other effects of climate change.