Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed, who held the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting in 2009 in a symbolic cry for help for his low-lying island nation, says he’s not “pessimistic” about efforts to ramp up global climate action.
Now the speaker of parliament for his Indian Ocean home, he advocates on behalf of 48 vulnerable countries for more effort by big-polluter nations to cut emissions and boost finance for those on the frontlines of wild weather and rising oceans.
Ahead of the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow starting tomorrow, the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) Nasheed represents — which unites developing nations from Africa, Asia and Latin America — has called for a “climate emergency pact”.
The grouping wants countries to ramp up their plans for emissions cuts at every annual UN climate summit through to 2025, striving harder to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5C this century.
That accord says countries should update their national climate action plans, known as NDCs, every five years, though the 2020 deadline for the second round of pledges was delayed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We are calling on any country — but especially the major emitters — to come with additional ambition at every single COP,” said Ethiopia’s Commissioner for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Fekadu Beyene earlier this month.
Close to 50 of the roughly 190 countries that signed up to the Paris accord have yet to submit new or updated emissions reduction goals due by the key UN talks.
Of those plans submitted, a few large emitters show low — or no — fresh ambition.
“They still have the same (small) amount of concern about inflicting harm on vulnerable countries”, even as warming impacts become more severe around the world, Nasheed said.
At COP26, governments will seek to get every country synchronised on a five-year schedule to tighten their emissions targets. But a round of fresh pledges every five years may not be enough to meet the 1.5C goal, seen as vital by scientists, small island nations and other at-risk countries for the world to avert the worst effects of climate change.
To stick to 1.5C, the UN climate science panel says emissions need to be reduced by 45% below 2010 levels by 2030.
Pressure is growing on some of the world’s biggest-emitting emerging economies which have yet to formally submit stronger 2030 targets, including India, Russia and Brazil.
Helen Mountford, vice president for climate and economics at the World Resources Institute, said the window was “rapidly closing” on the chances of meeting the 1.5C goal.
But G20 economies — which together account for about 80% of global emissions and whose leaders meet this weekend — could get most of the way there “if they really stepped up”, she noted.
While most climate experts and campaigners agree more collective effort is needed to limit planetary heating, there are differences of opinion on how to share the burden of delivering the required emissions reductions.
Some argue poor countries — most of which have historically spewed few greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — should not have to boost action each year, especially if funding to help them do so continues to fall short of promised levels.
Revamping climate plans can be a particularly heavy bureaucratic burden on small countries with few resources and already negligible emissions. – Thomson Reuters Foundation