Nearly 200 nations are meeting in Paris until December 11, trying to work out a deal to limit a rise in temperatures blamed on increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. Current projections suggest that some countries may disappear entirely within decades without action.
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According to the U.N.’s intergovernmental panel on climate change, some of these islands could be nearly completely covered in water by 2100.
If such places face severe jeopardy by rising sea levels, they would like to be compensated by those most responsible for climate change. “I understand both the beauty but also the fragility”, he said, alluding to his upbringing in Hawaii and Indonesia.
The President of Kiribati described the meeting as useful.
The UN talks aim to seal a deal that would slash carbon emissions – which come mainly from burning fossil fuels – from 2020 and deliver hundreds of billions of dollars in aid for climate-vulnerable countries.
Asked what would happen if the nations aren’t able to secure these objectives, Fletcher said it was “too early for us to speak of what we will do if the Paris Agreement does not address issues that are critical to the long-term survival of small island states”.
The encounters – French President Francois Hollande met African leaders and President Barack Obama was meeting envoys from island nations – highlighted one of the biggest debates among delegates negotiating an worldwide climate agreement: how much rich countries should help poor ones cope adapt to global warming and reduce their emissions. “Climate change is one of the really big stressors…”
Many more in Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu have been internally displaced by the effects of global warming, the report said, adding that migration is not a workable solution to the problem because many who move end up in already overpopulated cities with high unemployment – and eventual vulnerability to climate change.
More than 100 countries are pushing for 1.5 degrees, but the United States, China and India oppose it.
Obama on Tuesday said the US would commit $30 million to risk-insurance schemes established to help poor regions rebuild after climate-related disasters strike. But they will also note what he did not say.
The second is a provision in the main body of a Paris agreement that creates a permanent way for dealing with the losses nations are now facing from climate change.
About 10,000 people in the three nations tried to emigrate between 2005 and 2015 but were unable to do so, mostly for financial reasons, the report said. We lost some smaller uninhabited islands in March during cyclone Pam, so it is getting worse And our wells now taste salty, so we have to survive on rainwater.
Obama said he believed the global political landscape was shifting, boding well for Paris and beyond. That, U.S. officials say, is a “red line” they will not cross.
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“Climate change is a massive problem, it’s a generational problem”, Mr Obama said on the sidelines of the United Nations conference.
