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Subject At COP 26, Island Nations Demand Action on Funding and Emissions
Date November 10, 2021 2:00 AM
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[Islands have contributed little to global emissions yet stand to
suffer disproportionately from climate change. Now, they are demanding
more funding to protect themselves.] [[link removed]]

AT COP 26, ISLAND NATIONS DEMAND ACTION ON FUNDING AND EMISSIONS  
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Tina Gerhardt
November 9, 2021
The Nation
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_ Islands have contributed little to global emissions yet stand to
suffer disproportionately from climate change. Now, they are demanding
more funding to protect themselves. _

Many island nations, like Tuvalu, in the South Pacific, pictured
here, are extremely vulnerable to climate change., Mario Tama / Getty
Images

 

_This column is part of Covering Climate Now
[[link removed]], a global journalism collaboration
cofounded by _Columbia Journalism Review_ and _The Nation_ to
strengthen coverage of the climate story._

“Smallness is a state of mind,” said Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, climate
envoy from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, at a press briefing
yesterday morning, citing Tongan scholar Epeli Hau’ofa. “That’s
really applicable to the ways in which islanders, who despite being
small in land mass, have been holding the line at these
negotiations,” she added.

Island nations, which include 47 countries, representing a population
of 730 million and 5.3 percent of the globe’s land mass, are among
those that have contributed the least to climate change and global
greenhouse gas emissions yet are disproportionately suffering their
impacts. These effects include sea level rise, ocean acidification,
drought, and salinization of soil and water wells, each of which
impacts food supplies.

The annual UN climate negotiations try to achieve two things: to
establish commitments for greenhouse gas emissions (ghg) reductions
and for funding. Islands have called on developed nations to reduce
ghg emissions by 45–55 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, as called
for by the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report,
and to pay all the promised funds of $100 billion per year starting in
2020 and through 2025.

At previous COP conferences, island nations and the UN groups that
represent them, such as the Alliance of Small Island States and the
Small Island Developing States, have consistently called on the
developing world to increase ambitions with regard to both ghg
emissions reductions and funding. In this regard, this year is no
different.

COP26 opened with a focus on islands, as the powerful words of Mia
Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, quickly went viral. “In the
words of that Caribbean icon, Eddy Grant: Will they mourn us on the
front line? When will we as leaders across the world address the
pressing issues that are truly causing our people angst and worry,
whether it is vaccines or climate crisis? Simply put: When will
leaders lead? Our people are watching and our people are taking note.
Are we really going to leave Scotland without the commitment to
ambition that is sorely needed to save lives and to save our planet?
Or are we so blinded and hardened that we can no longer appreciate the
cries of humanity? Today, we need a correct mix of voices, ambition
and action.”

Mottley drew attention to three gaps: (1) on mitigation, (2) on
funding, and (3) on adaptation. Let me unpack. Mitigation refers to
how cuts to ghg emissions will be achieved. For example, it could
happen via an energy transition, a move to renewables, or a shift in
the transportation industry.

But energy transitions take money. That’s where the funding from
developed to developing nations comes in. And here, Mottley highlights
a second gap. In 2009, developed nations agreed to pay $100 billion
_per year_ to developing nations, starting in 2020 and through 2025.
That money has yet to be paid in full for 2020 and 2021. As Mottley
said in her opening address, “We are $20 billion short of the $100
billion.”

Money, however, is not lacking. Mottley highlighted that major central
banks [[link removed]] have
engaged in $25 trillion of quantitative easing in the past 13 years,
including $9 trillion in the past 18 months to fight the pandemic.
Some of those funds, she underscored, could have been allocated to
finance the energy transition or a transition in transportation.

When funding does arrive, it is supposed to be split 50-50 between
mitigation and adaptation, referring to measures taken to respond to
the impacts of the climate crisis, such as managed retreat. But in
actuality, as Mottley mentioned, only about 25 percent of the funds
currently go to adaptation. Islands are, however, already really
impacted by the effects of the climate crisis. That’s why they need
the money now for adaptation.

As Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner put it in a recent interview: “For years, we
have been focused on mitigation, on getting the rest of the nations to
lower their emissions. But we’re now at a critical turning point,
where it’s gotten more serious, and we’re looking inwards and are
trying to protect ourselves first.”

At the press briefing yesterday morning, focused on “Partnerships
for Island Resilience: Sharing Solutions in the Great Ocean States,”
Jetnil-Kijiner said, “The thing I was most concerned about coming
into this COP[26] was increasing funds for adaptation specifically.
For the Marshall Islands, we are looking at several billions of
dollars for implementing our National Adaptation Plan for elevating
land, for reclaiming land and for internal migration.” She refers to
them as extreme adaptation measures.

The Republic of Marshall Islands rests less than two meters (six and a
half feet) above sea level in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are
completely flat and have no mountains. According to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Marshall Islands have
contributed a mere .00005 percent to global CO2 emissions versus
China’s 28 percent and the United States’ 15 percent.

 
At the press briefing, Simon Stiell, Minister of Climate Resilience of
Grenada, added: “Mitigation is a marathon and adaptation is a
sprint.” President Obama, who was also on the island resilience
panel, repeated this sentence. It means that ghg emissions reductions
will not happen overnight. But adaptation has to happen now, and for
that, action on funding is needed.

At the COP26 President’s Informal Stocktaking meeting yesterday, the
Alliance of Small Island States insisted on ambitious reduction
targets with concrete implementation plans and for updating to be more
systematic. AOSIS further called for the committed $100 billion to be
paid. AOSIS also asked that adaptation financing be doubled
immediately, so that it is on par with mitigation funding.

It remains unclear whether these demands will be met coming out of
COP26, and specifically whether developing nations will pay all the
promised adaptation funding. A draft
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of the final document leaked yesterday showed a placeholder for the
“Global Goal on Adaptation.”

One thing is sure: Islands will keep the pressure on. The motto of
Pacific Islander climate activists is, “We are not drowning! We are
fighting!”

Tina Gerhardt is an environmental journalist who covers the
international climate change negotiations, domestic energy policy,
hurricanes, and sea level rise. Her writing has been published in
_Grist_, _The Nation_, _The Progressive_, _Sierra Magazine_, and
_Washington Monthly_. You can follow her on Twitter @TinaGerhardtEJ
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_Copyright c 2021 The Nation. Reprinted with permission. May not be
reprinted without__ __permission_
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Distributed by__ _PARS International Corp
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