Making a case

They urge richer countries to pay their fair share in climate change fight

At-risk nations want richer countries to pay their fair share in the climate change fight.

KATOWICE ( Poland): Nations most threatened by rising sea levels and devastating droughts will use a UN summit in Poland to urge richer countries to pay their fair share in the climate change fight.

The presidents of at-risk states such as Honduras, Nigeria and Bangladesh are expected at COP24 talks, which aim to flesh out the promises agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

But host Poland – heavily reliant on energy from coal – will push its own agenda: a “just transition” from fossil fuels that critics say could allow it to continue polluting for decades.

The Paris deal saw nations agree to limit global temperature rises to below 2°C and under 1.5°C if possible.

Delegates from nearly 200 countries now have two weeks of negoti- ations to finalise how those goals work in practice, even as science suggests the pace of climate change is rapidly outstripping mankind’s response.

One of the key disputes is finance. Under Paris, richer nations – responsible for the majority of historic greenhouse gas emissions – are expected to contribute funding that developing nations can access to make their economies greener.

But US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord has dented trust among vulnerable nations, who fear there is not enough cash available to help them adapt to our heating planet.

The background to yesterday’s summit could hardly be bleaker: with just one Celsius of warming so far Earth is bombarded with raging wildfires, widespread crop failures and super-storms exacerbated by rising sea levels.

“A failure to act now risks pushing us beyond a point of no return with catastrophic consequences for life as we know it,” said Amjad Abdulla, chief negotiator at the COP24 for the Alliance of Small Island States.

The UN’s own expert climate panel in October issued its starkest warning to date.

To have any hope of reaching the 1.5C goal by the end of the century, it said emissions from fossil fuel use must be halved by 2030. — AFP

A failure to act now risks pushing us beyond a point of no return with catastrophic consequences for life as we know it. Amjad Abdulla