Survival of poor nations at risk of climate is paramount

BONN, Germany—While many developed-country governments are scaling back expectations on clinching a comprehensive deal by the end of this year on tackling climate change, leaders of developing countries pressed their appeal for unity and urgent actions to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change to which their nations are most vulnerable.

“Our survival is not negotiable. We need political will, and we should act now,” said Collin Beck of the Solomon Islands and vice chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States. He warned that most of the islands are doomed to disappear from sea-level rise and other climate impacts over the next 50 years.

Beck, in a meeting with the press here, said small islands in the Pacific are calling for legally binding agreements that would serve as a successor to the Kyoto Protocol at the next annual meeting of environment ministers in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29 to December 10.

Countries around the world are still to negotiate a comprehensive global agreement to deal with climate change, a prospective deal that fell apart in the change conference in Copenhagen last December.

“We are on the frontlines of the climate-change crisis. If governments failed to address funding for adaptation, technology transfer, deep emissions cuts, and finally a strong legally binding treaty, we are not ensured of our survival,” said Quamrul Islam Chowdhury of Bangladesh, the main negotiator for the Group of 77 poor nations. Banglades is a so-called estuary nation—a large part of its territory are deltas of rivers highly vulnerable even now to high tides.

The island states and countries like the Solomons, Bangladesh and the Philippines may be thousands of miles from the industrialized countries where most greenhouse gases are emitted, but they are proving to be the first to feel the effects of global warming with the rising sea level, fiercer typhoons, more frequent and deeper flooding, and severe drought.

via businessmirror.com.ph

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