The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), of which Jamaica is a member, tweeted its concerns on the US$100 billion climate finance goal, expressing deep disappointment, and indeed, impatience, noting:
The delay in meeting the US$100 billion #climatefinance goal is a major blow to #SIDS and the developing world. Devastating #climatechange impacts are not waiting, this is about survival.
Ambition must be realised now, before we’re faced with an existential cost beyond our reach.
@AOSISChair on Twitter
They shared this Statement from Ambassador Aubrey Webson, AOSIS Chair:
We now have a climate finance plan, but the US$100 billion goal is still elusive and only likely to be met in 2023. While we appreciate the efforts of the UK COP26 Presidency, Canada, and Germany in leading this initiative for transparency, this is a major blow to the developing world. The goalpost has been moved even further to the continued detriment of Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
It was already a source of grave disappointment for SIDS and the developing world that developed countries did not deliver the promised US$100 billion by 2020. The impact this has had on trust cannot be underestimated, nor should the investments needed to accomplish the mitigation for 1.5 degrees C, adapation to an increasingly warming world, and the responses to Loss and Damage in this decade, which will be orders of magnitude greater than US$100 billion. Devastating climate change impacts are not waiting, they are worsening at rapid pace. We absolutely do not have the luxury of accommodating more and more delays.
Developed countries must deliver with speed, scale, and quality on the finance to save the planet. At the same time, AOSIS is calling for developed countries by 2023 to end fossil fuel subsidies, which have contributed to our planet’s destruction. Tangible action is critical to the fight agains the climate crisis, a fight which severely impedes the development of Small Islands and threatens our very existence. Pledges and plans are completely futile when they are not propelled by effective action.
The urgency of delivering on the promises confirmed in Paris is for SIDS a matter of survival. The world has a decade to act to keep global warming to below 1.5 degrees C just to give SIDS half of a chance of a livable planet. We need in that time predictable, accessible, and adequate resource to support our transformation and our ambition. The transformation must be just, and our ambition realised now – before we are all forced to pay an existential cost beyond our reach.
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Reblogged this on Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News.
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