Every week into Cop29 negotiations, we’re not shifting quick sufficient – or anyplace for that matter – on some key points.
Local weather finance, or extra particularly the brand new collective quantified purpose (NCQG) to switch the present $100bn a yr purpose, and the work to operationalise the loss and harm fund, are key anticipated outcomes right here in Baku.
The multilateral course of is essential. Nevertheless, as a citizen of a Small Island Growing State (SIDS), and the president of Palau, the tempo with which these negotiations are shifting can generally really feel agonisingly irritating.
The significance of those points to Pacific international locations can’t be understated. Around the globe, conversations on world safety usually revolve round invasions, acts of terrorism and threats to peace. For us, the local weather disaster is our invasion. It’s a relentless, unyielding pressure that assaults our meals safety, our economic system, our tradition and our very existence.
We need to entry adequate, predictable, grants-based local weather finance to handle our local weather change wants and priorities. These local weather finance mechanisms must be scalable, contextual, versatile and predictable.
The truth is that we don’t have time. We’re battling an enemy that strikes hardest at those that have contributed the least to world warming, marine air pollution and environmental degradation.
In Palau, the ocean that after introduced life and abundance now creeps nearer every day, reclaiming coastlines, submerging taro farms and jeopardising methods of life that we now have practised for a millennium. Like many SIDS, Palau stands on the frontline of the local weather disaster, grappling with rising temperatures, dwindling marine life and an unsure future.
Palau, together with all SIDS, has lengthy been recognised by the worldwide neighborhood, lengthy earlier than Paris 2015, as a “particular case” or a gaggle whose distinctive wants and issues have to be addressed. Although we’re among the many least accountable for local weather change, we endure essentially the most from its instant results.
That is what makes SIDS a particular case requiring the assistance and a spotlight of the worldwide neighborhood to restrict greenhouse fuel emissions and adapt to local weather change.
The Paris settlement, signed in 2015, formally acknowledges these particular circumstances, pledging to maintain world warming “nicely beneath 2C” and to pursue efforts to restrict it to 1.5C. Science tells us that exceeding this 1.5C threshold would imply catastrophic penalties for SIDS – a future that we within the Pacific can not think about.
Because of this, at Cop29 in Azerbaijan, Palau and different Pacific SIDS will proceed to amplify our One Pacific Voice, demanding the respect and assist that the local weather change conference and the Paris settlement promised. As incoming chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), Palau will stand agency towards any efforts to dilute the popularity of our particular circumstances.
Cop29 isn’t just one other assembly. It’s a significant alternative for significant dialogue and collaboration that results in action-real, measurable assist for SIDS. Our battle towards the local weather disaster is a name for collective motion, a plea for the world to face collectively. We ask that our world neighborhood upholds the commitments made to SIDS, recognises our distinctive vulnerabilities and helps us forge a path to a sustainable future.
The time for decisive motion is now.
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