The growing repercussions of the climate crisis triggered nations at the UN General Assembly on September 23 to urge the rich nations to do more and help them cope with the extremities of global warming.
The island nations who have gained a prominent stature in global climate talks said that it is significant for countries that burn the maximum amount of fossil fuel, blamed for rising temperatures to stop paying “lip service” to the issue at a time when the islands are at most risk from the rising sea levels.
Samoan Natural Resources and Environment Minister Cedric Schuster, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) said at the meeting, “I wonder if our countries are moving further and further away from the unity and the moral fortitude we require to protect our people.’’
Directing at the G20 nations, AOSIS said that efforts should be led by them especially on emissions cuts and climate financing as vulnerable people of the world are drained by the ‘lip service.’
Malawi’s climate and natural resources minister, speaking on behalf of the Least Developed Country negotiating bloc also pressed that developed countries should be leading the way.
Climate change has become much more than an environmental issue and more about climate justice due to the widening gap between countries that suffer and those who contribute most to global warming.
Bahamas Prime Minister Phillip Davis told Reuters that he had been pleading with wealthy nations to stay focused on the problem as “Climate events are coming at us faster and more frequently. The signals being sent [by countries] do not match the commitments that were made.’’
Remember, 10 years ago rich and poor countries both found a way to coexist and rally together around a global pact like the Paris Accord 2015 where these countries accepted that climate change threatens all of us and we owe it to each other to slow it down.
However, the current geopolitical scenario has pushed farther away the possibility of another global accord due to China undermining the incentives to cooperate, rich countries failing to help poorer nations financially to move away from fossil fuels and a widening gyre of war between Israel and Gaza and Ukraine and Russia which has become an impediment to global climate consensus.
