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Countries big and small get a chance to witness climate change at UN climate talks – World News

Countries big and small get a chance to witness climate change at UN climate talks – World News

Melina Walling, Sibi Arasu and Seth Borenstein, Associated Press – | Story: 517124

As more than two dozen world leaders deliver remarks at the United Nations’ annual climate conference on Wednesday, many hard-hit countries are detailing their countries’ firsthand experiences with the catastrophic weather that comes with climate change.

Leaders described climate disasters one after another, and each seemed above the other. Grenada’s prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, detailed a 15-month drought that gave way to Category 5 Cyclone Beryl at the beginning of the year.

“Right now, as I stand here again, the man has been devastated by flash flooding, mudslides and heavy rainfall, all within a matter of hours,” Mitchell said. “There may be small island states developing today. Tomorrow it will be Spain. The next day it will be Florida. It’s one planet.”

Small island nations call for stronger climate action

Grenada’s prime minister wasn’t the only leader of the small island nation to come out with combative words.

Prime Minister Philip Edward Davis warned that “our children and grandchildren will bear this burden, their dreams will be reduced to the memories of those who could have been.”

“We don’t, we can’t, accept that our survival is just an option,” Davis said.

Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister, Gaston Browne, stressed that the “morals have been turned upside down” by major emitters who are not taking responsibility for their impact on the countries that stand to lose the most. He said high-pollution nations were “deliberately burning the planet.”

Browne said past promises of financial aid had gone unfulfilled for too long, so small island nations would have to seek justice and compensation in international courts.

Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands, called the climate crisis the “most urgent security threat” facing her country, but said the Paris Agreement process – under which countries agreed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times – is durable.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, in his speech calling out developed countries, especially France and the Netherlands, for their colonial past, took the opportunity to put his country in the difficult situation of small island developing states.

He explained the harms of colonialism that continue today. Biodiversity loss, rising seas and extreme weather often affect communities that have been “brutally suppressed”, he said.

The United States also tried to show sympathy to hard-hit places.

“Are we securing prosperity for our countries or dooming our most vulnerable to unimaginable climate disasters?” said John Podesta, US chief climate envoy. “Vulnerable communities don’t just need ambition. “They need action.”

European leaders describe a year of extreme weather

European countries also warned about climate disaster on their continent.

“The devastating floods in Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina and southern Croatia over the past year have shown the devastating impact of rising temperatures,” Croatian prime minister Andrej Plenkovic said. “The Mediterranean, one of the most vulnerable regions, calls for urgent action.”

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said he was concerned about the lack of political action and political will as extreme weather conditions are occurring more harshly and more frequently, and the failure of leaders of many countries to participate in climate talks. Tired of other leaders’ empty speeches, Rama denounced “life continues with old habits” and all these good-intentioned speeches changed nothing.

“Although optimism is the only way to survive, what is happening in Europe and the world today does not leave much room for optimism,” Rama said.

Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Europe and the world needed to be “more honest” about the compromises needed to keep global temperatures low.

“We need to ask hard questions about a path that moves too quickly at the expense of our competitiveness, and a path that moves much slower but allows our industry to adapt and thrive,” he said. This summer the country has been hit by consecutive heatwaves following three years of below-average rainfall. Misery included water scarcitydried up lakes and the death of wild horses.

Ireland’s environment minister, Eamon Ryan, offered some hope by saying the 2015 Paris climate agreement “still stands” and that countries leaving the agreement will realize they are being left behind as other countries move forward and see benefits to their economies.

Negotiators work toward elusive deal on money

Negotiators at the summit want to reach an agreement on how much money and how developed countries will pledge to adapt to climate change and transition to clean energy for developing countries.

An early draft of what the final deal would look like was released Wednesday morning, but it still included multiple options that negotiators would work through to reach a consensus by the end of climate talks.

David Waskow, director of international climate action at the World Resources Institute, said the latest 34-page draft reflected “all the options on the table.”

“Negotiators now need to work to reduce the issue to some important decisions,” which can be worked on in the second half of the summit.

Avantika Goswami, a climate policy analyst at the New Delhi-based Center for Science, said the final draft “contains some new demands”, including a request for $1.3 trillion in climate finance from the G77, one of the largest negotiating blocs, and China. and Environment.

“Developing countries were clear that an interim target needed to be set to hold developed country governments accountable,” he said.

Germany’s climate envoy Jennifer Morgan, in an oblique reference to China, said all climate polluting countries should contribute to climate funds, one of the most controversial issues discussed at climate talks in Baku this year.

“There are countries that have been successful and prosperous in recent years since 1992, and they can also contribute greatly to funding for developing countries,” he said.