COP 26 president sounds wake up call for world’s major carbon emitters

Published On The ABC Radio Australia, Pacific Beat
Follow Lice Movono in Suva, Fiji

One of the world’s most prominent climate change leaders says other parts of the world are now getting a taste of what Pacific Islanders have endured for decades.

Alok Sharma is the president of COP26, the annual United Nations climate change conference which the United Kingdom hosted in Glasgow last November and he has been on a world tour of sorts, bringing attention to the agreements made at the last COP.

In Suva, President Sharma met with political leaders, civil society groups and citizens impacted by climate disasters.

At the tail end of the one day visit, he travelled to Buretu, a village in Nakelo, Tailevu at the centre of Fiji, a 45mnt drive outside of the capital Suva, where just about every impact of the climate crisis is evident.

In the centre of the swampy village where salt water intrusion makes farming staple crops impossible and where no home is without the evidence of flood damage, Sharma warns more awareness is needed for the world to wake up to the risks of global warming.

While the villagers of Tailevu’s delta area are no strangers to climate change, Sharma said soaring temperatures and wild fires now are threatening indications of the climate crisis that he said was becoming apparent in other parts of the world.

“I’ve just come from London, where we’ve had record temperatures for the first time over 40 degrees, which I can tell you from a UK perspective, is really a very high temperature,” he said.

“What you have been experiencing for decades, and have been warning the world about, we are now experiencing in Europe.”

While he is shopping for better and faster action on agreements made in the Glasgow Climate Pact, the COP President believes the worst of climate change is still to come and urgent action is needed to avoid more severe impacts.

He is lobbying for a more urgent  step up from the G20, the world’s largest economies, a lot of whom are also the largest carbon emitters.

“We’ve had a number of G20 countries, which are coming forward with revised emission reduction targets…but we need everyone, we need everyone in the G20 to play their part.”

– COP 26 President, Alok Sharma

Professor Elizabeth Holland, the head of the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development, or PACE-SD, as it’s known leads a team at the University of the South Pacific, directed by the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum to drive Pacific specific climate science action.

She made an emotional plea to President Sharma on the compound and cascading risk which affects the Pacific region, made worse when two or more climate related disasters interact.

“So while 10 years ago, or five years ago or seven years ago, we might have struggled to understand what was meant by compounding risk, or cascading risks. The last few years have very clearly demonstrated the limits of that,” Professor Holland said.

She said Pacific Islanders must continue to take on the special role she says they play in warning the rest of the world about climate threats.  Pacific Islanders have a way of telling difficult truths with such humour that they can be received, she said.

One such truth teller is Salote Nasalo, a youth climate activist who responded to a public lecture President Sharma held at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. 

As a Masters Student at PACE-SD, has had sleepless nights, worrying about the responsibility on the shoulders of Pacific youth.

“I will be responsible for negotiating, convincing, pleading for a chance for my people to have an opportunity to live their lives and live to the fullest,” Ms Nasalo said.

Calling on nearby countries, particularly Australia to put more action to work on its global climate commitments, Ms Nasalo said a lot of the promises have been on policy but without urgent action towards better realities for Pacific people.

“There’s a lot of theory behind it. But there’s not so much action. Yes, they say they care, they can  sympathise with us but we need action, our people are not going to just live with everything that’s changing with everything that’s happening around us. We have less than 27 years to relocate 795 communities.”

– Salote Nasalo, Climate Scientist and Youth Climate advocate.

Download Radio Story Here
Duration: 3min 12sec
Broadcast: Thu 28 Jul 2022, 6:00am