Facing ‘extinction,’ PH, vulnerable nations lament pace of climate talks

KATOWICE, POLAND—Dozens of nations threatened with catastrophe from unchecked climate change warned on Thursday they “face extinction” without immediate action to rein in mankind’s emissions, as UN climate talks limped toward their conclusion.

Representatives from nearly 200 nations are locked in negotiations in Poland over how to make good on the promises they made in the landmark 2015 Paris agreement aimed at limiting global temperature rises.

The talks aimed at averting catastrophic climate change are expected to spill over the weekend after two weeks of heated disputes between rich and poor nations that saw countries most at risk plead for action.

Ministers must agree on a common rule book to make good on promises made by countries in the landmark 2015 Paris accord, which vowed to limit global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Talks have, however, hit a wall over a host of disputes ranging from adopting the newest environmental data to how the fight against climate change will be financed in the future.

‘We’re not prepared to die’

But with Earth already experiencing widespread droughts, flooding and megastorms made worse as our planet heats up, many nations simply cannot wait for action.

“We are bearing the torch for those vulnerable to climate change,” Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands, told delegates at the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24). “We represent a number of nations, like my own, that face extinction. Species of all kinds also face existential risk.”

A group of 48 nations representing more than 1 billion people urged developed countries responsible for the lion’s share of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to pay up to help the worst affected.

“We are not prepared to die,” said Mohamed Nasheed, former president of Maldives, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean threatened by rising sea levels. “We are not going to be the first victims of the climate crisis. Instead, we are going to do everything to keep our heads above water.”

Pace of talks dismays PH exec

For small island states like Maldives and the Marshall Islands and vulnerable nations like the Philippines and Nepal, a robust rule book for the landmark Paris climate deal can determine their continued existence amid extreme weather events, such as droughts and flooding.

Emmanuel de Guzman, vice chair of the Philippine Climate Change Commission, said the pace of the talks had been unacceptable.

“We are in Poland in the name of the children of tomorrow whose interests we must secure, compelled by science and duty,” said De Guzman, the Philippines’ lead negotiator.

“We find the ambivalence of countries in these negotiations unacceptable. We are discussing here not trivial text or punctuation marks but our very survival.” A major sticking point at the talks remains how nations use the findings of a landmark UN report released in October.

‘Jememmej’

“There is no excuse for inaction from the world’s most powerful nations,” he said. “The decades of apathy and procrastination must end here in Katowice.”

Nations belonging to the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) on Thursday called for “jememmej,” or vigilance in Marshallese language.

On the sidelines of the COP24 summit to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 48-member CVF demanded governments to step up in their commitments to respond to climate change. They also called for the rapid and effective delivery of climate finance to developing countries, which remained a bone of contention in the climate talks.

Heine, who is also current CVF chair, said that all nations should unite against any “mediocre outcome” from COP24.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted the need for greenhouse gas emissions to be nearly halved by 2030 and for fossil fuel use to be slashed in order to achieve the Paris goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5 C.

Four nations—the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait—blocked a proposal for nations to “welcome” the IPCC report as a basis for future climate action.

Talks are dogged by competing interests, and even if the Paris pledges were realized, Earth is on the path toward 3 C warming enough to tear at the fabric of society.

Nasheed said even after 24 years of climate talks, nothing much seemed to have changed.

“We are still using a dinosaur language, still using the same old words and tedious points,” Nasheed said. “It is time to tell ourselves some hard truths: Carbon emissions are rising, rising, rising, and all we seem to do is talking, talking, talking.” —WITH A REPORT FROM AFP