GENEVA, CMC – Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne says his island is conscious that responding to the consequences of local weather change comes with a worth and that growing international locations lack the monetary sources to adapt and mitigate towards local weather change.
“Our challenges turn into much more daunting, with an unresponsive worldwide monetary structure, that fails to prioritize concessional funding to help SIDS (Small Island Growing States) to rebuild within the aftermath of those climate-related incidents or shocks,” Browne instructed the three-day 114th Session of the Worldwide Organisation for Migration (IOM) Council.
It’s being held beneath the “Local weather Impression on Human Mobility: A International Name for Options,” and Browne, in a video presentation, mentioned that SIDS has needed to borrow repeatedly to restore broken infrastructure and restore financial losses.
“We do that repeatedly to maintain our international locations viable and to avert the opportunity of our individuals turning into local weather migrants or refugees. SIDS undergo the best monetary burden to local weather change per capita, although they contribute the least CO2 emissions globally, a mere 0.5 %,” he instructed the Council.
“They’re the best victims, not solely due to unattended loss and harm to lives and livelihoods but additionally as a result of the very existence of those international locations is fatally endangered,” Browne mentioned, questioning “why ought to residents and residents of huge polluting international locations stay in luxurious whereas our peoples stay in local weather distress?
The Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister mentioned he has a specific goal on the upcoming United Nations Local weather Change Convention (COP28) to deal with the Loss and Injury Fund in Dubai from November 30 to December 12.
Browne mentioned he had championed the fund throughout Antigua and Barbuda’s chairmanship of the Alliance of Small Islands States (AOSIS) final yr, recalling that at COP27, the world’s biggest polluters agreed that such a fund was important and determined to ascertain a transitional committee to make suggestions for consideration at COP28.
“As we method COP28, we should insist that the loss and harm fund be operational with out additional delays. The fund should present sufficient financing to assist SIDS stand up to the seas as they rise, the winds as they enhance in energy, and sources to rebuild when all our efforts to construct resilience towards climatic occasions fail.”
However Browne instructed the Council that the final word precedence is the pressing discount in emissions and the acceleration to renewables. It’s making ready to host the Fourth Worldwide Convention on SIDS in Might 2024.
“At SIDS4, we are going to proceed to steer on local weather points as a result of tackling local weather change offers a chance to consolidate and speed up growth features by means of cleaner air, improved public well being, and higher safety.
“We have now no excuse to not act, and we should act now. We have now all of the instruments to handle the challenges of local weather change, environmental pressures, and biodiversity loss. However instruments are of no use if we don’t use them. What’s lacking is the dedication to behave and to behave now,” Browne added.
He mentioned what can also be wanted is extra motion, extra ambition, and extra political will, failing which is able to trigger the world to take care of a proliferation of local weather migrants and local weather refugees and their attendant mobility.
The Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister warned that local weather change is not a distant concern for some, saying it’s an existential menace to all of humanity.
“The speed at which the local weather adjustments ought to trigger all to panic, engendering a powerful international response. On daily basis, the world faces new climate-related devastations which have turn into extra frequent and impactful. ”
Browne mentioned that no nation, group, or one is immune, and nobody is secure till all are secure.
“Sadly, it’s weak small island states that proceed to undergo disproportionately from the devastating penalties of local weather change regardless of their negligible emissions of greenhouse gases. ”
Browne mentioned that yearly, SIDS continues to face the unrelenting forces of tropical cyclones, extended droughts, rising sea ranges, ocean acidification, and shifting climate patterns.
He mentioned such occasions have gotten extra frequent and extreme and can worsen extreme and can worsen except international locations act urgently.
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