At the UN General Assembly this week, island nations facing the brunt of climate change’s effects challenged wealthy nations, claiming their survival was at peril because industrialised nations were not acting quickly enough.

“There are many amongst us, the small and marginalized islands of our globe, surrounded by rising seas and scorched by rising temperatures, who are beginning to question this annual parade of flowery speeches and public pretense of brotherhood, otherwise known as the U.N. annual General Assembly,” Saint Lucia Prime Minister Philip Pierre told the gathering this week.

In July, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a warning that the age of global warming had come to an end and that “the era of global boiling has arrived.” Several speakers at the weeklong event cited this statement.

A recurrent subject was developed nations’ perceived lack of urgency. Speakers emphasised how the threat of rising sea levels to island and low-lying countries was brought on by a failure to sufficiently reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“The problem is that those whose actions we most need may be so confident in their survival that they do not act early enough for us,” Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said on Friday.

Countries committed to limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), which scientists think will prevent the worst effects of warming, as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation.

According to scientists, in order to achieve that objective, global emissions must be cut in half by 2030 and to zero by 2050.

“Unfortunately, the international community has not done nearly enough to get us on track to limiting the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” Wesley Simina, president of Micronesia, said in a speech on Thursday.

“One need only scan the news on any random day to see the evidence of the climate crisis in devastating effects around the world today,” he said.

David Kabua, president of the Marshall Islands, asked for the creation of an international financial facility to aid small island states and low-lying atoll countries that are affected by natural disasters.

In order to change course, including the phase-out of fossil fuels, Kabua said that nations attending the U.N. COP28 climate summit beginning in November must admit that the world is falling short of the Paris Agreement’s goals.

“These challenges might be inconvenient for large economies – but I can assure the climate impact’s already at our door,” he told the General Assembly.

Climate change will be discussed during a second summit that US President Joe Biden will convene with Pacific Islands Forum leaders on Monday at the White House. The event is a part of Washington’s efforts to deepen its ties to a region where it is competing with China for influence.

(Adapted from BusinessWorld.in)

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