Alliance of Small Island States negotiator says G20 countries must act on climate change urgently – Love FM

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are expressing serious concern that average global warming has already reached one point two degrees Celsius and that the prospect of going above one point five degrees Celsius in the 2030s is looming. Even at one point five degrees Celsius, small island developing States will continue to experience the worsening of slow onset and extreme events, including more intense storms and sea level rise accompanied by sea waves. storm causing coastal flooding. SIDS leaders continue to emphasize that members of the Group of 20, which account for 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions, have the greatest mitigation potential to reduce emissions and keep 1.5 ° C within range tomorrow. Senior negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, the regional negotiating bloc of which Belize is a part, explains Janine Felson.

Jane Felson, Senior Negotiator, AOSIS on Climate Finance: “We need a lot of effort to close the mitigation gap that needs to bring us to 1.5. We need efforts to push developed countries to deliver on their climate finance pledge, but to get past the 100 billion they talk about, start going into the trillions and we need to focus specifically on how support can. be increased for countries like Belize that are tackling the impacts of climate change but we pay everything out of our pocket and when we get help we get it in the form of loans. We cannot continue to pay for something we did not cause, so we have to push on this financial front to make sure our countries have access to the subsidies we need and are really owed to us. We also need to address a whole new area of ​​loss and damage. When you think about the Barrier Reef and how much stress it is under and what it will mean if we lose what is a natural defense for us, but it is also a lifeline for our economy. Once we lose that we cannot get it back that is why we have to talk about this thing called loss and damage and we need support for that. We did not cause the climate crisis, we are not contributing to human-induced climate change but we are suffering the consequences. There are many tools in the toolbox for us to start raising our ambitions and one of the tools will be the markets which primarily trade in carbon credits with the end goal of reducing emissions. It’s a critical part of this discussion, but we don’t want what you hear about green washing, we want substantial mitigation efforts put on the table. So there are a lot of different parts in this whole discussion about the markets that are being traded, which are very technical, but what we need is for our ministers to constantly emphasize that this is for 1, 5, it is for non-profit people.