Wed, Dec 02, 2015 page7

• Forum calls for lower warming cap

  REPARATIONS: The Climate Vulnerable Forum said the Paris agreement should include an international mechanism to address climate-linked loss and damage

  • Thomson Reuters Foundation, PARIS
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  Leaders from a group of 43 countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on the first day of UN climate talks called for a new deal that puts the world on track to limit global warming to below 1.5°C.

  To achieve that goal — which is tougher than the expected 2°C cap at the talks — would require cutting carbon emissions to zero and adopting 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, the nations said.

  Meeting it would demand much higher ambition at the talks than is now on the table, with experts saying current pledges from over 180 nations to curb planet-warming emissions add up to a temperature rise of at least 2.7°C. Global warming is expected to hit 1°C this year.

  Costa Rican Minister of Foreign Affairs Manuel Gonzalez said his country’s experience was that committing to reduce emissions could boost rather than harm economic growth.

  “Keeping warming to a minimum of below 1.5°C won’t simply deliver safety and prosperity, it will also deliver justice,” he said.

  A declaration made by countries in the Climate Vulnerable Forum said that global emissions should peak as soon as possible — at the latest by 2020.

  The group includes middle-income, least-developed and small island developing states, from the Philippines, Bangladesh and Costa Rica to Ethiopia and the Maldives.

  Dhaka-based International Centre for Climate Change and Development director Saleemul Huq told a gathering on the sidelines of the Paris negotiations that sticking to a warming limit of 2°C meant about 100 million people would “fall between the cracks.”

  Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said Climate Vulnerable Forum countries are estimated to be suffering economic losses from climate extremes of at least 2.5 percent of GDP each year — even though they account for less than 2 percent of global emissions.

  His country was experiencing climate change “in the starkest possible terms,” through powerful storms and flooding, he said, adding that the Philippines suffers an annual average of 50,000 deaths from weather disasters.

  Money channeled into emergency spending to deal with the crises was money the country might otherwise be spending on its development, he said.

  “Building back better is becoming less and less of a guarantee, given the new normal might still be replaced by an even newer normal that is even more destructive if we fail to act,” he told the event.

  The forum’s declaration also called for the Paris agreement to enshrine an international mechanism to address unavoidable climate-linked “loss and damage,” such as the effects of rising seas and creeping deserts.

  This is a sticking point in the negotiations, as rich nations fear they would be forced to foot the bill for permanent harm caused by climate change.

  The forum said developed countries should continue to take the lead in providing funding to poorer nations, from a floor of US$100 billion per year by 2020.

  However, finance ministers from 20 vulnerable countries have also set a target of mobilizing US$20 billion in new investment for climate action by 2020 themselves, drawing on international, domestic, regional and private sources.

  In addition, the forum called for faster progress toward an equal split in financial backing for emissions reductions — which now get the bulk of cash — and measures to cope with climate change.

  Whether the agreement that comes out of the Paris summit is ambitious or not is a “key difference for all of you and many others,” UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres told members of the forum.

  She said she had yet to see them working together “in an articulate and coordinated fashion” for a new UN agreement.
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