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loss and damage
Pacific Islands Summit Highlights Disproportionate Climate Impacts
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres stressed that "the region urgently needs substantial finance, capacities, and technology to speed up the transition and to invest in adaptation and resilience."
Aug 26, 2024
As more than 1,500 delegates from over 40 nations gathered in Tonga for the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting, climate defenders on Monday urged the world's biggest polluters to do much more to phase out the fossil fuels that are driving a planetary emergency disproportionately affecting low-lying island countries, which are among the world's lowest greenhouse gas emitters.
"Tonga's vision for the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting (PIFLM53) is for the Pacific to move beyond policy deliberation to implementation—to achieve transformation by building better now," summit organizers said in a statement affirming the event's mission to "develop collective responses to regional issues and deliver on their vision for a resilient Pacific region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion, and prosperity."
"We may be small island countries but we are a force to be reckoned with."
Addressing attendees at the summit's opening ceremony in the Tongan capital of Nuku'alofa, Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Secretary-General Baron Waqa of Nauru called for regional unity to tackle common challenges.
"We may be small island countries but we are a force to be reckoned with," he said. "We are at the center of geostrategic interest, we are at the forefront of a battle against climate change and its impacts."
Speaking at Monday's opening session, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres lamented that "humanity is treating the sea like a sewer. Plastic pollution is choking sea life. Greenhouse gases are causing ocean heating, acidification, and a dramatic and accelerating rise in sea levels."
Guterres—who warned in Samoa last week that low-lying island nations face the threat of climate "annihilation"—said that "Pacific islands are showing the way to protect our climate, our planet, and our ocean: By declaring a climate emergency and pushing for action, and with your declarations on sea-level rise, and aspirations for a just transition to a fossil fuel-free Pacific. But, the region urgently needs substantial finance, capacities, and technology to speed up the transition and to invest in adaptation and resilience."
"The young people of the Pacific have taken the climate crisis all the way to the International Court of Justice," Guterres added. "You have also rightly recognized that this is a security crisis—and taken steps to manage those risks together."
Mahoney Mori, who chairs the Pacific Youth Council and is the PIFLM53 youth representative from the Federated States of Micronesia, called out the international community's failure to adequately fund climate mitigation initiatives like the loss and damage fund—which developing nations say will require an annual investment of at least $400 billion, or nearly 10 times the amount pledged at last year's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai.
"Despite the commendable pledges from the United Nations and world leaders such as the Paris agreement, the existing global finance mechanisms still hindered community-based and youth organizations from accessing critical support," Mori said. "The Pacific's grassroots organizations struggle to meet global standards amidst this crisis and time is running out."
As leaders met for PIFLM53 amid torrential rains, a 6.9-magnitude earthquake rocked Tonga's main island of Tongatapu. While there was no damage reported and no tsunami warning issued, summit attendees said the temblor underscored vulnerabilities faced by low-lying island nations.
Leaders and activists from Pacific island nations took aim at regional giant Australia—which has been perennially ranked as one of the world's worst climate-wreckers in U.N.-backed Sustainable Development reports—for insufficient climate action.
"We recognize Australia's desire to present itself as a climate leader and co-host the COP alongside the Pacific," Pacific Islands Climate Action Network regional director Rufino Varea said in a statement, referring to Australia's bid to help lead the 2026 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP31.
"However, true leadership must not merely be aspirational; it must be actionable," Varea continued. "To date, Australia has expanded gas production instead of aligning its practices with the urgent needs of the Pacific. This does not reflect the leadership we need."
"If Australia is to demonstrate genuine commitment, it must align its domestic and international climate policies with our goals and advocate earnestly for a fossil fuel-free Pacific," he stressed. "It must also commit to ambitious climate actions, ensure effective climate finance is delivered to Pacific island countries, and contribute substantially to the loss and damage fund."
"If these steps are not taken, we risk witnessing a COP that concedes failure—declaring that critical targets were missed, and that Pacific communities continue to be exploited as mere labor resources for the enrichment of others," Varea added.
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In Samoa, UN Chief Says Low-Lying Island Nations Face 'Annihilation' by Climate Chaos
"We need all countries to honor their promises on climate finance and a strong finance outcome from this year's COP where we will discuss the financial commitments after 2025."
Aug 22, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned in Samoa on Thursday that low-lying Pacific island nations face the threat of "annihilation" from rising sea levels, cyclones, ocean heatwaves, and other dangers driven by human-caused climate chaos.
"High and rising sea levels pose an enormous threat to Samoa, to the Pacific, and to other small island developing states. These challenges demand resolute international action," Guterres said. "Sea levels are rising even faster than the global average, posing an existential threat to millions of Pacific Islanders."
"If we are not able to stop what is happening with climate change, this problem that we see in Samoa will not stay in Samoa."
Recalling the 2009 earthquake and tsunami that killed at least 192 people and devastated Samoa, Guterres said that "we have seen people that moved their houses inland, we have seen people that persisted coming back and rebuilding, we have seen an enormous determination of people to fight against, not only the impact of the tsunami, but the impacts of the rising sea levels and of the storms and the cyclones."
"I've seen a wall that is protecting a village from the sea; that wall in 20 years, because of the tsunami—because of the rising sea level, and because of the heavy storms—has already been built three times," he continued.
"People are suffering. Economies are being shattered. And entire territories face annihilation," Guterres stressed.
Guterres said Samoans' ambitious plans to tackle the "existential threat for millions" are being impeded by a lack of promised funding from rich nations. He pointed to the Loss and Damage Fund, agreed to in 2022 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt, as well as rich countries' 2021 pledge to double climate adaptation funding to $200 billion.
"We are fighting hard for climate justice," said Guterres, but "we are not seeing the money that is needed and that's why we ask for the reform and the international financial institutions in order for the funding needs of countries, like Pacific countries, to be met."
"We need all countries to honor their promises on climate finance and a strong finance outcome from this year's COP where we will discuss the financial commitments after 2025," he added.
COP29—which has been criticized by green groups for being chaired by a former oil executive—is set to take place in Baku, Azerbaijan in November.
Low-lying Pacific island nations are among the least responsible for the climate emergency but are among the most adversely affected by the crisis. To help address this, Guterres reiterated his call for small island nations like Samoa to have access to $80 billion in development from special drawing rights (SDRs), which are reserve assets controlled by the International Monetary Fund that can be exchanged for cash. Rich countries can also place SDRs in a fund for developing nations' use.
The secretary-general also said that new income streams are key to the survival of nations like Samoa whose tourism industries were devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic and which "have not received the support of the international community."
"If we are not able to stop what is happening with climate change, this problem that we see in Samoa will not stay in Samoa," Guterres warned. "It will be happening more and more everywhere in all coastal areas, from New York to Shanghai, from Lagos to Bangkok."
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'This Is a Disaster': Bonn Climate Conference Ends Without Financing Progress
"Developed countries are not even offering crumbs from the table and are blocking all progress," lamented one campaigner.
Jun 13, 2024
As the clock ticks down toward this November's COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, the Bonn Climate Change Conference in Germany ended in a stalemate Thursday as nations were unable to agree on the size and scope of loss and damage financing and other issues.
This week's talks in Bonn yielded no significant progress on climate financing as the industrialized nations that are most responsible for the planetary emergency continued to try and shirk what Global South countries say is their responsibility to compensate those who suffer most but have emitted the least greenhouse gases.
"Developing countries need trillions in new public finance for adaptation, loss and damage, and for a just transition away from fossil fuels. But developed countries are not even offering crumbs from the table and are blocking all progress," said Friends of the Earth climate justice and energy campaigner Sara Shaw.
Loss and damage refers to funding meant to compensate developing nations for the destruction caused by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis the world's poor played little role in creating.
"They want developing countries to accept loans which will further fuel debt, and are pushing already discredited carbon market finance schemes, which causes grave harm in the Global South," Shaw added. "This is a disaster."
Crux of #SB60 #climate finance discussions in Bonn highlighted in my take at the recent @CANIntl press conference.
Thank you @LossandDamage for capturing it.@fossiltreaty #ClimateJustice #ClimateEmergency pic.twitter.com/ynVV2R4g5N
— Harjeet Singh (@harjeet11) June 11, 2024
Referring to the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said Thursday that the Bonn stalemate is "undermining the momentum needed to ensure strong outcomes at COP29, to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan in November."
"Discussions on climate finance lacked the urgency required for one of the most critical decisions to be finalized at COP29," WWF said of the Bonn conference. "A new funding goal for the period 2025 to 2035 is set to be agreed, in line with the terms of the Paris agreement."
"But developed countries have not yet given clear indication what they are considering contributing to developing countries for climate action, nor where the money will come from," the group added. "Concurrently, calls for urgently needed funding for adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage remain unfulfilled."
Greenpeace International climate politics expert Tracy Carty said in a statement Thursday that "rich developed countries talked at length about what they can't commit to and who else should pay, but failed to assure developing nations on their intent to significantly scale up financial support."
"Damning silence on what finance might be offered is stymying efforts to raise ambition and is a dereliction of duty to people battling climate-fueled storms, fires, and droughts," Carty added.
"Rich countries most responsible for this crisis must pay up for a fair fossil fuel phaseout and climate damages, without worsening unjust debts."
Developing nations have said they need around $400 billion annually for a loss and damage fund that they could tap to rebuild communities, restore crucial wildlife habitats, or relocate people displaced by the climate emergency. The United States has committed to a paltry $17.5 million for the global loss and damage fund. Developed nations have pledged approximately $661 million for loss and damage funding to date, according to the U.N. Development Program.
Laurie van der Burg, international public finance lead at Oil Change International, asserted that "the rich countries most responsible for this crisis must pay up for a fair fossil fuel phaseout and climate damages, without worsening unjust debts."
"We know they have more than enough money," van der Burg added. "It's just going to the wrong things."
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