On the 8th local time, the second day of the 27th Summit of the Parties to the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, leaders of developing countries facing climate disasters urged swift action to respond to change and urged developed countries to compensate them responsibly.
Prime Minister Kausa Natano of Tuvalu, a Pacific island country whose land has started to be submerged due to sea level rise triggered by climate change, said: “We have signed a treaty on the non-proliferation of fossil fuels. which is the main cause of the climate crisis, with Vanuat and others.
“It’s getting too hot and there’s not enough time to slow or reverse the rise,” he said.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif, who suffered the worst flood this year, flooding a third of the country, said: “If it’s not now, it’s forever.
We have no other planet (planet B). ”
In particular, they feared that most of the support to respond to the climate crisis would come in the form of loans, which could plunge developing countries into a debt quagmire.
Prime Minister Sharif stressed that developed countries responsible for the climate crisis should help developing countries that are affected by it, but “but not in a way that throws developing countries into the debt trap.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa also pointed out that the multinational development banks’ approach to climate finance is risk-averse and inaccessible to most of the world’s population due to its high costs and conditions.
“Loan providers need to change the way they finance climate change projects,” he said.
President of Senegal and the African Union (AU) Macy Sal also stressed that “African countries are victims of climate change due to industrial policies of advanced countries that use fossil fuels, but it is an absurd situation in which they have to raise funds. to respond to climate change alone “.
Some of the developing countries affected by climate change have complained about this situation, arguing that an “unexpected tax” should be passed on to energy companies that make a lot of money from rising fossil fuel prices and should be used as a financial aid for developing countries.
Prime Minister Gaston Brown of the Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda said, “It is time to impose a carbon tax on the profits of those companies and use them as a source of funds to offset ‘loss and damage’. Profit.”
“If small island nations don’t get taxes on fossil fuels, they will bring this problem to international law and let the polluter pay the price,” he added.
Earlier, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Motley also asked fossil fuel companies to contribute to the Climate Fund, which helps climate-affected countries.
However, some leaders in developed countries oppose the taxation of fossil fuel companies.
German Chancellor Olaf Schultz said: “This should not be a place to enact tax legislation, but a place to jointly develop measures to respond to the consequences of climate change.”
The two-day climate summit was attended by leaders from over 100 countries.
However, nine of the leaders of the top 10 greenhouse gas emitting countries most responsible for climate change did not participate.
The issue of “loss and damage” caused by climate change has been adopted as an official agenda for the first time in 30 years since the start of the UN General Assembly on Climate.
In addition, under strong pressure from developing countries affected by the climate disaster, some countries in the United States and Europe have decided to offer substantial subsidies in the name of the “Just Energy Transition” and “Loss and Damage” funds.
However, the negotiation between developed and developing countries should not be easy because advanced countries will have to bear an astronomical amount if the fund principle is established through the loss and damage framework.
Although the meeting attended by the Heads of State Party ended on this day, activities such as labor-level negotiations on key programs such as greenhouse gas reduction, climate change adaptation and losses and damage will continue until to 18.
