By Peter Hobson
Excerpt:
NADI, Fiji, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Restricting global warming is a matter of survival and too many countries are shirking their responsibility to cut emissions, the official presiding over the UN’s flagship upcoming climate conference said on the final day of the meeting’s precursor event on Thursday.
“Today is a time where everyone is running away from responsibility,” Murat Kurum, Turkey’s climate minister and president of this year’s UN COP conference, COP31, said at a press conference. “We do not have a single minute, a single day to lose.”
He was speaking on the final day of pre-COP, which brought thousands of delegates to Fiji this week and took a group from 30 countries to Tuvalu ahead of the main event to be held in Antalya, Turkey, in November.
Reflecting on his visit to the tiny low-lying atoll nation of Tuvalu on Tuesday, Kurum said mothers and children were under increasing threat from every high tide.
Pacific Island nations sought to use the pre-COP in their region to embed their priorities into the COP31 agenda.
These include better access to funding for resilience projects, protection of oceans, and holding warming beneath 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels — something the UN Environment Programme says is impossible in the near term but could be achieved over time with emissions reduction.
But Kurum said holding to that limit is crucial.
“This 1.5 degree goal … is a matter of survival,” he said. “The survival of cultures, history, memories, your homeland, your homes.”But Kurum said holding to that limit is crucial.
“This 1.5 degree goal … is a matter of survival,” he said. “The survival of cultures, history, memories, your homeland, your homes.”
“This 1.5 degree goal … is a matter of survival,” he said. “The survival of cultures, history, memories, your homeland, your homes.”
