Progress on finance and adaptation should not be lost in round of compromise warns the world’s Least Developed Countries at UNFCCC
Bangkok, August 30, 2012
As the next round of climate negotiations begins in Bangkok, the Chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) group warned that there is a big risk that key issues could be lost that are vital to protect poor countries from the ravages of climate change, that they are already experiencing.
“We need massively increased finance for adaptation and for action to reduce emissions and we need to set up a proper international coordination process to deliver resources for adaptation to those in most need,” said LDCs group’s chair, Pa Ousman Jarju, of The Gambia.
“We cannot live with these issues being deferred until a new agreement is negotiated in 2015 and that would not even come into effect in 2020.”
“We are experiencing global warming-induced drought, water and food shortages now. The drought in the USA costs insurance companies money, but the droughts in the LDCs are causing loss of life and livelihoods, malnutrition in our children and huge dislocation which is very serious for our survival.”
He said the Durban meeting agreed on four major tasks to complete in Doha:
- Adopt a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol,
- Start a new treaty negotiation,
- Raise the level of ambition, and conclude our long negotiations under the Bali Action Plan which must deliver on finance and adaption.
“The Bali Action Plan is fundamental in protecting the interest of LDCs – right here and right now, and not in ten years’ time. Our attitude towards it reflects our attitude towards any future agreement. Two years of dialogue followed by five years of negotiations with interim key decisions in Cancun and Durban cannot just be ignored as if they never happened.”
It is extremely important that Governments agree to respect the commitments they have already made to provide finance, technology, and capacity building to developing countries and to enhance cooperation to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change and not to use the focus on a new process to avoid past promises. We cannot indefinitely delay action, especially with regard to climate change, which is already upon us.
| The Inter-sessional negotiations of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) comprise the informal additional sessions of the Ad Hoc Working Groups – the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex 1 Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP), the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP). The objective of these additional sessions is to continue the work from the preceding negotiations held in May 2012 in Bonn, Germany while also preparing for the upcoming 18th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 18) to the UNFCCC scheduled in Doha, Qatar on 26 November – 7 December 2012. For further info, please visit http://unfccc.int/meetings/items/6240.php .LDC Watch is monitoring the negotiations and trying to engage in the process. |
