Tuvalu Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga has called on larger blocs like the United States and the European Union to refrain from using what he labelled as “delaying tactics”.
This could potentially derail a legally binding agreement from being reached at the United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change or COP21, currently underway in Paris.
Speaking to a packed press conference at the COP21 summit here on 3 December, PM Sopoaga said that while he appreciated statements made by world leaders during the COP21 plenary sessions, progress was still “painfully slow” and had resulted in little progress in Paris, much like other COP meetings in Durban, Doha, Warsaw and Lima.
“We’re still struggling with wording. And there is no transparency. There’s a lot of twist and turns and the process is an injustice. These delaying tactics must stop. We don’t want a declaration of intent that will place countries like Tuvalu at a disadvantage and cut out resources to us.
“We don’t want to be dumped with something to look at the last minute, like what happened in Copenhagen. We don’t want that to happen,” the PM said.
“We need strong leadership by countries in the European Union in order to reach a legally binding agreement. Credible action is needed.”
Prime Minister Sopoaga said that the decision not to invite Tuvalu to a meeting with US President Barack Obama and leaders of small island states in Paris earlier this week was “unfortunate”.
“Access to climate funding has now been taken over by bureaucrats. When we submit our applications, we are told to provide scientific proof that we are being impacted by the effects of climate change. How can a small country like Tuvalu that does not have a good scientific capacity meet that kind of demand?
“Consideration of funding must be based on the level of vulnerability to impacts of climate change and not in the quality of submissions. ODA financing must not be used to fund climate change adaptation,’’ he said.
Prime Minister Sopoaga also stressed the need for the “polluter pay” principle to form part of the Paris Declaration and said that countries like Tuvalu should not be made to pay for climate change adaptation initiatives.
Discussing the release here on 2 December of a United Nations University and United Nations ESCAP study on climate induced migration in Tuvalu, Kiribati and Nauru, PM Sopoaga said: “The report provides very useful data on climate migration and I thank the UNESCAP Pacific Office for the study and the EU for funding it.”