America’s renewed scepticism, and even hostility under Donald Trump’s second administration, does not for one moment alter the fact that climate change is real.
Neither does it negate the reality that the Global South – including the almost 700 million-strong Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), virtually all of which are tropical countries – is on the front line of the climate crisis.
Typhoons Tino and Uwan, which recently struck our region, especially the Philippines, are the latest proof of this and a reminder of the urgent need for climate justice.
What the Global South needs from summits like COP30 has been stated time and time again. It really boils down to four things.
The developed world needs to listen: On the one hand, developed countries need to listen to developing and less developed countries on how climate change should be addressed.
A rigid approach to the various facets of climate action, including technology, energy transition and biodiversity conservation, will ultimately frustrate the sincere, proactive measures that many Global South countries, including Malaysia and several of its ASEAN partners, are taking towards these goals.
More flexibility on the part of the Global North would go a long way towards ensuring that the war against climate change is won.
This is not an attempt to water down or deflect anything. The right to live in a sustainable environment is arguably a fundamental human right.
Israel’s devastating war in Gaza has also resulted in widespread ecocide that Western nations have remained strangely silent on, but whose ramifications – not only for the Middle East but for the wider world – will last for decades.
There should therefore be no doubt that sustainability and human rights go together. Supporting the former, especially in ASEAN and the Global South, is a means of upholding the latter.
Developed countries should bring their chequebooks: At the risk of putting things crudely, money talks. The various climate finance commitments – especially those for vulnerable nations – must not only be fulfilled, but also increased.
Projections from the United Nations Global Policy Model estimate that developing countries will need around $1.1 trillion in climate finance by 2025 and some $1.8 trillion by 2030.
The chair of the COP30 UN Climate Change Conference, Brazil, has rightly said that it hopes the meeting in Belem will be remembered as “the COP of Adaptation Implementation”. This is astute because, while I do not share the view that it is too late to act, it should be painfully clear that climate action can no longer be about setting lofty goals. Rather, the time has come to deliver.
The Global South can lead on climate change: Admittedly, the absence of the United States – as the world’s superpower and largest economy – looms over the COP and any international efforts to protect the environment. But the absence of the US is not a reason to retreat from climate action, or any other international cause; rather, it is an opportunity to reaffirm and strengthen multilateral cooperation.
Although it would be nice to have the US involved, the world can act without America. As has been widely reported, China’s carbon dioxide emissions have either flatlined or fallen over the past 18 months.
Moreover, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), proposed by Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is an important part of the solution.
With the World Bank as its trustee and interim host, the TFFF seeks to support lasting conservation strategies and protect crucial tropical ecosystems through global, public and private partnerships.
With a medium-term goal of achieving a $125bn fund, the TFFF Launch Declaration has been endorsed by 53 countries and 19 sovereign wealth funds. Among them are 34 tropical forest countries, covering 90 percent of the tropical forests in developing nations.
Excerpted: ‘ASEAN can’t let Trump’s America set the pace on climate action’.
Courtesy: Aljazeera.com
