Scientist hands in ‘shopping list’ for upcoming climate talks
LOCAL AND celebrated climate scientist, Professor Michael Taylor, has handed in his ‘shopping list’ of items the Caribbean needs to take away from the upcoming global climate talks.
They are items, he said, without which the region’s survival cannot be assured amid the onslaught from climate change impacts.
“When we reach the COP (Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), as a Caribbean, there are at least five Caribbean zero matters that have to be on the table,” Taylor insisted, referencing the call for the achievement of net zero emissions by 2050.
Net zero emissions is about ensuring that the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) going into the atmosphere is matched by the amount that is being removed.
The emission of GHGs, such as carbon dioxide from coal burning, fuel climate change, which holds far-reaching and devastating consequences for countries the world over but, in particular, small-island developing states, including the islands of the Caribbean.
EXTREME WEATHER
Those consequences include more extreme weather events, the likes of which have caused a loss of lives and livelihoods as well as billions of dollars in damage in the region over recent years.
Taylor’s list of needs, meanwhile, include “collective ambition and rules of play” which have to be on the table because zero way before 2050 has to be a non-negotiable goal, if we are even to get to (the) 1.5 (degrees Celsius target for a cap in temperature increases).
“Mitigation has to be on the table because the closer we get to net zero is the better the chance of achieving the best possible result. 1.5 has to remain on the table because zero emissions does not turn back climate change; it merely gives us a fighting chance to reach 1.5,” he added.
Taylor – a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius – was addressing yesterday’s pre-COP Conversations and launch of Jamaica’s implementation plan for Nationally Determined Contributions for a reduction in greenhouse gases. The event was hosted by the Ministry of Housing, Urban Renewal, Environment and Climate Change.
“Adaptation and loss and damage (are also necessary) because 1.5 is not a safe climate; it is a compromised climate for the Caribbean. Access to resources and finance has to be on the table. Zero has to be accompanied by resources to enable the vision we see for the Caribbean. So when net zero comes and we only hit 1.5, we still need to hit it and look good according to what we want,” the physicist explained.
His list reflects those from the five-point plan dubbed ‘COP26: Delivering the Paris Agreement’, that was made public earlier this year and which has won the support of developing countries, including members of the Alliance of Small Island States of which Jamaica is a member.
“As Nelson Mandela once said, ‘our experience has taught us that with goodwill, a negotiated solution can be found for even the most profound problems’,” the plan noted.
“The need to tackle climate change meaningfully is now so profound as to make goodwill in our negotiations essential. There cannot be a truly successful and transformational COP26 unless developed nations come to the table in a genuine spirit of compromise, making long overdue progress on the developing world’s legitimate needs and committing both the ambition and support needed to get on track for the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature limit,” it added.