Island nations say denial of climate change will hurt all
POLAND MEET Group of small island states stresses that the impact of global warming is becoming worse than feared
NEW DELHI: The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and climate activists have said the COP24 being held in Poland is the last opportunity to ensure justice to communities most vulnerable to climate change.
Hussain Rasheed Hassan, Maldives’ environment minister and chair of AOSIS, said denial of climate change impacts will hurt all. Responding to the failure of COP parties in welcoming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report titled “Global warming of 1.5 degrees, he said, “While we failed to endorse the findings of the IPCC special report here (COP24), it doesn’t change the fact that out in the world, coral reefs will continue to bleach, forest fires will continue, people will continue to die in droughts, heatwaves, storms, and sea will continue to rise. Denial doesn’t change the reality that climate change is happening as is much worse than we feared.”
Hassan is going to be part of the ministerial meetings this week to finalise the Paris rulebook which will spell out how various provisions of the Paris Agreement will be operationalised. Hassan and former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed from the AOSIS delegation are likely to raise the issue of climate justice this week.
COP 24 ends on December 14. “While small islands states will be hit first and hit the hardest, you will be next. This year we have seen the global effects of just 1 degree C. The impacts of climate change know no boundaries,” the AOSIS said in a statement while adding that transparency in reporting of climate finance obligations by the developed countries will be one of their priorities.
Progress on the Paris rulebook has been very slow, according to officials and activists Last week major differences emerged on key issues like climate finance and differentiation or equity in implementation of the Paris agreement, which basically means developed countries take the lead while developing and least developed countries also take action in accordance to their capacities.
This is has brought together 10 academics and activists from different walks of life who are saying that it’s the moral responsibility of COP parties to deliver a fair Paris rulebook. Members from India and US, who call themselves the People’s Climate Network, launched their coalition last week and have called on vulnerable communities across the world to study the findings of the IPCC’s report titled ‘Global warming of 1.5 degrees.’
“All of us need to reflect on IPCC’s special report on the importance of keeping the earth’s average surface temperature to 1.5°C without overshoot. This confirms the concerns of small island nations and others that have maintained for a long time that 2 degrees C is already greatly damaging,” said a press statement by the network. The network, which includes Indian members who are mainly working with forest and tribal communities in central India, has started curating data and stories of people affected by climate change.
“We plan to build a platform through which data can be collected and uploaded directly by community members… Indigenous communities already have a presence at the COP24. In COP23 a platform was created by the UNFCCC for local communities and indigenous people, and one of their aims is to integrate indigenous knowledge systems and best practices into climate policy...,” their statement said.
“...In the past two days, the debate on whether the IPCC 1.5 degree report is taken seriously or diluted, has both digressed the talks from progress but also opened a report which was earlier approved by all countries. It is in India’s interest to have a strong agreement from this COP,” said Aarti Khosla, director of Climate Trends, a research and communication organisation.