Climate Change Resilience
By Samisoni Pareti, Editor in Chief of Island Business Magazine, amplifying the Pacific voice at COP21 in Paris, France
8 December 2015, Paris, France, COP21 - Minister of Climate Change in Vanuatu Jerome Ludvaune took to the podium at the COP21 talks in Paris today to ask the leaders of the world to draw a line at a temperature rise target of ...well below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
At this level, the risks that climate change poses to the very survival of Vanuatu are minimised, said Miniser Ludvaune.
“Vanuatu is still recovering from nation-wide suffering and devastation inflicted by severe category 5 Cyclone Pam, now exacerbated by the drought induced by the strongest ever El Nino event. Human lives, the lives of my people have been lost.”
“We the leaders of the world must stop this crisis, drawing the line here in Paris. We wish we could prevent all further warming, so that further suffering is prevented. Lamentably, scientists tell us this is impossible, and further warming is inevitable. We do know that limiting warming to well-below 1.5 degree Celsius is still within our reach.”
Minister Ludvaune also put up a strong case for a stand-alone mechanism on Loss and Damage, and the provision of new, adequate and predictable financing on climate change adaptation.
“Our adaptation needs exceed our capacity. It is crucial that adaptation support rests on the developed countries’ obligations under the Convention rather than shifting the burden to developing countries with limited means. Of this support, we need clarity on sources and predictability. Procedures for direct access must be simplified. Finance must be scaled up dramatically to meet our adaptation needs.”
Niue is the only other Pacific island nation that is listed to address COP21 today, whilst Dame Meg Taylor, Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum is among heads of the world’s intergovernmental organisations invited to address climate change negotiators today. Her counterpart at the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat Kamalesh Sharma will also speak.
To speed up agreement on a new global deal on climate change, President of COP21, French minister of foreign affairs Laurent Fabius had formed an informal Paris Committee comprising ministers of mainly European countries to assist him. These ministers are pushing for consensus in the areas of support/means of implementation, ambition, differentiation and pre-2020 action, and have already submitted their first report to the COP21 presidency.
The report of the committee on ambition headed by Minister Tine Sundtoft of Norway and Minister James Fletcher of St Lucia for example reported about progress on the “willingness to explore language referring to the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit” by a “significant number of developed and developing country parties including the most vulnerable.”
It does say that divergent remain “on citing the context for the long term goal, with many parties calling for the contextualisation of the 1.5 or 3 degree temperature limit including for example equity and sustainable development.”-
#4PacIslands
8 December 2015, Paris, France, COP21 - Minister of Climate Change in Vanuatu Jerome Ludvaune took to the podium at the COP21 talks in Paris today to ask the leaders of the world to draw a line at a temperature rise target of ...well below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
At this level, the risks that climate change poses to the very survival of Vanuatu are minimised, said Miniser Ludvaune.
“Vanuatu is still recovering from nation-wide suffering and devastation inflicted by severe category 5 Cyclone Pam, now exacerbated by the drought induced by the strongest ever El Nino event. Human lives, the lives of my people have been lost.”
“We the leaders of the world must stop this crisis, drawing the line here in Paris. We wish we could prevent all further warming, so that further suffering is prevented. Lamentably, scientists tell us this is impossible, and further warming is inevitable. We do know that limiting warming to well-below 1.5 degree Celsius is still within our reach.”
Minister Ludvaune also put up a strong case for a stand-alone mechanism on Loss and Damage, and the provision of new, adequate and predictable financing on climate change adaptation.
“Our adaptation needs exceed our capacity. It is crucial that adaptation support rests on the developed countries’ obligations under the Convention rather than shifting the burden to developing countries with limited means. Of this support, we need clarity on sources and predictability. Procedures for direct access must be simplified. Finance must be scaled up dramatically to meet our adaptation needs.”
Niue is the only other Pacific island nation that is listed to address COP21 today, whilst Dame Meg Taylor, Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum is among heads of the world’s intergovernmental organisations invited to address climate change negotiators today. Her counterpart at the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat Kamalesh Sharma will also speak.
To speed up agreement on a new global deal on climate change, President of COP21, French minister of foreign affairs Laurent Fabius had formed an informal Paris Committee comprising ministers of mainly European countries to assist him. These ministers are pushing for consensus in the areas of support/means of implementation, ambition, differentiation and pre-2020 action, and have already submitted their first report to the COP21 presidency.
The report of the committee on ambition headed by Minister Tine Sundtoft of Norway and Minister James Fletcher of St Lucia for example reported about progress on the “willingness to explore language referring to the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit” by a “significant number of developed and developing country parties including the most vulnerable.”
It does say that divergent remain “on citing the context for the long term goal, with many parties calling for the contextualisation of the 1.5 or 3 degree temperature limit including for example equity and sustainable development.”-
#4PacIslands