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Climate Change is an existential threat to the Caribbean #1point5toStayAlive is a Panos Caribbean initiative to help make the Caribbean's case for 1.5°C. Since 2009, Small Island Developing States and many others have been calling for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels to prevent the worst of climate change impacts. The inclusion of a 1.5°C temperature limit in the 2015 Paris Agreement was a major victory for vulnerable countries. |
#1point5toStayAlive Frontpage News
Petchary's Blog: "Caribbean Climate Justice Alliance Statement on COP27: Bold, urgent, accelerated action needed"
30 OCTOBER 2022
The Caribbean Climate Justice Alliance has released a Statement ahead of the UN Climate Conference (COP27), which will take place from November 6 – 18, 2022 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Right now, technocrats are busy getting their documents in order; emission-unfriendly planes and private jets are being boarded; and political leaders are polishing up their grand speeches – updated from COP26. Civil society organisations are girding their loins for another battle, and reporters, citizen journalists and academics are seeking to make their voices heard amidst the din.
→ READ MORE ON PETCHARY'S BLOG
- Category: Voices of the 1.5°C Allies
CARICOM MINISTERIAL STATEMENT AHEAD OF COP 27
28 October 2022
Ministers of the Environment and Sustainable Development of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), met at the One Hundred and Fifth Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) – Environment and Sustainable Development, on Friday 28 October 2022.
The Ministers considered the scientific and geopolitical context and the prospects of a global recession in 2023 which will have significant bearing on global action to address the polycrises of climate, energy, food, health, environment, development and security;
They reiterated that global warming represents an existential threat to CARICOM and reaffirmed their full commitment to limit the increase in global temperature to well below 1.5 degrees Celsius;
- Category: Voices of the 1.5°C Allies
CARBONBRIEF: "Timeline: The struggle over ‘loss and damage’ in UN climate talks"
27 SEPTEMBER 2022
From the moment diplomats and leaders first gathered at the UN in the early 1990s to discuss the issue, these states began asking for help to deal with climate-related “loss and damage” (...) In this interactive timeline, Carbon Brief has delved into the archives, talked to seasoned negotiators and interviewed activists about the struggle to elevate this issue, from a niche piece of UN jargon, into one of the defining issues in international climate politics.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
IPCC SIXTH ASSESSMENT REPORT: "Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability"
MARCH 2022
The Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report assesses the impacts of climate change, looking at ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities at global and regional levels. It also reviews vulnerabilities and the capacities and limits of the natural world and human societies to adapt to climate change.
- Category: Voices of the 1.5°C Allies
CARBONBRIEF: "COP26: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Glasgow"
15 NOVEMBER 2021
After two weeks of increasingly frantic negotiations, the gavel came down at 11.27pmon Saturday 13 November, making it the sixth longest COP on record. Vulnerable countries also left bitterly disappointed that their calls for a Glasgow “Loss and Damage Facility” were blocked by the US and EU. (See: Loss and Damage.) Yet despite question marks hanging over the COP26 pledges – and the processes kicked off by the Glasgow Pact – the outcome was widely seen as a step forward.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
VOX: "What the world did and didn’t accomplish at COP26"
13 NOVEMBER 2021
The high-stakes COP26 climate change talks in Glasgow concluded on Saturday evening with the strongest government commitments to fighting climate change in history. Yet they’re still not enough to meet the ambitious targets of the Paris climate agreement and stave off some of the worst consequences of global warming.
It was not the massive course correction for the climate that activists were clamoring for.
But unlike so many climate meetings in recent years, the negotiations in Glasgow did not collapse or produce only a tepid statement of consensus.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
CLIMATE SUMMIT NEWS: "#COP26 climate finance: Making sense of it all"
12 NOVEMBER 2021
Finance has been one of the main sticking points throughout COP26 and, as yet, no significant breakthroughs have been made. This is one of the key areas the conference will be judged on, and much of the increasingly fraught, last-minute negotiations will centre on cold hard cash. These are the key areas to watch out for…
- Category: 1.5°C Press
FES: "Polluters must pay"
12 NOVEMBER 2021 - ZICO COZIER / FRIEDRICH EBERT STIFTUNG
“For a long time, developed countries have resisted any effort to recognise loss and damage, because of the liabilities and potential claims for compensation that might emanate from that,” said Dr Colin Young, Executive Director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC).
- Category: 1.5°C Press
CIEL: "Latest COP26 draft text failing on human rights"
12 NOVEMBER 2021 - CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
“While negotiators are in hot pursuit of a quick conclusion they are continuing to undermine their commitments to upholding human rights while opening a Pandora’s Box of false climate solutions that will only serve to blow a hole in ambition. Once governments strike a deal on this, there will be no do-overs. And negotiators must think carefully about what they are doing before it is too late. If they can’t get it right in Glasgow, they should pause negotiations rather than pass an irreversible threat for communities in the Global South and future generations.”
- Category: Voices of the 1.5°C Allies
ODI: "Our thoughts on COP26 - Rolling insight"
12 NOVEMBER 2021 - OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT INTERNATIONAL
The climate conference is described as the “whitest and most privileged ever”. (...) One exception was Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley – described as a ‘regional rockstar’ after an inspiring opening speech, and the Amazonian activist Txai Suruí who brought attention to the devastating deforestation of the Amazon. Afterwards, Txai shared that she was nervous to speak in a foreign language (English) to a mostly white, male audience.
- Category: Voices of the 1.5°C Allies
'ASSOCIATES TIMES': "COP26: Dominican Minister Cozier Frederick calls on world to help island countries fight climate-change"
11 NOVEMBER 2021
“We have limited resources, we are throwing everything we have at achieving this, but we are running out of time to reverse the destructive environmental practices that are already having severe consequences for small island developing states.”
→ READ MORE ON 'ASSOCIATES TIMES' WEBSITE
- Category: 1.5°C Press
DAILY EXPRESS: "T&T climate goals based on ‘low-hanging fruit’"
10 NOVEMBER 2021 - ZICO COZIER
Trinidad and Tobago’s ambitions for cutting greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) are “not sufficiently bold” and based on “low-hanging fruit”, head of the Energy Unit at the Caricom Secretariat Dr Devon Gardner has said.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
Trinidad & Tobago Guardian: "Republic Bank to host Caribbean Climate Financing Summit"
10 NOVEMBER 2021
Republic Group in collaboration with New Energy Events has announced the launch of the inaugural Caribbean ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) and Climate Financing Summit to be held on November 17 to 18.Republic Group in collaboration with New Energy Events has announced the launch of the inaugural Caribbean ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) and Climate Financing Summit to be held on November 17 to 18.
In a statement the group said the importance of sustainable business practices is now more apparent in all the Republic Group’s markets and as such there is need to increase its involvement and support in this space.
The main aim is that this summit will bring together Caribbean borrowers, lenders and investors and act as a catalyst in the creation of a new financing ecosystem, it added.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
New York Times: "Calls for Climate Reparations Reach Boiling Point in Glasgow Talks"
11NOVEMBER 2021
For as long as there have been international climate talks, Saleemul Huq, a botanist from Bangladesh, has quietly counseled diplomats and activists from the global south on the prickliest question: What is owed to countries least responsible for the problem of global warming but most harmed by its effects — and by whom?
This year, there’s a big shift.
(...)
“The term ‘loss and damage’ is a euphemism for terms we’re not allowed to use, which are ‘liability and compensation,’” Mr. Huq said. “‘Reparations’ is even worse.”
- Category: 1.5°C Press
WASHINTON POST: "U.S., China issue joint pledge to slow climate change in the next decade"
10 NOVEMBER 2021
At a surprise announcement in the waning days of the COP26 summit, the world’s two largest emitters — China and the United States — said they would work together to slow warming during this decade and ensure that the Glasgow climate conference ends in success.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
BARBADOS TODAY: "CoP26: The last chance?"
10 NOVEMBER 2021
To be considered a success, CoP26 negotiations will need secure aggressive GHG emission reduction commitments from the world’s largest emitters, or as Palau’s President, the Honorable Surangel Whipps Jr told the CoP: “… [y]ou might as well bomb us [poorer, smaller and most likely to be affected countries.]”
- Category: 1.5°C Press
BBC: "The world's fight for 'climate justice'"
8 NOVEMBER 2021
Climate justice means many things to many people, but at its core is the recognition that those who are disproportionately impacted by climate change tend not to be those most responsible for causing it. Climate change is not only an environmental problem: it interacts with social systems, privileges and embedded injustices, and affects people of different class, race, gender, geography and generation unequally. The climate solutions proposed by climate justice advocates aim to address long-standing systemic injustices.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW: "The unequal representation of global media at COP"
10 NOVEMBER 2021
(...) It’s become increasingly clear that numerous Western outlets have more journalists here than many entire countries, sometimes significantly so. Access and exclusion have been huge stories at COP26—some of the countries most immediately threatened by the climate crisis were unable to send their leaders, never mind activists and concerned citizens—for reasons ranging from cost to COVID to both. There are excellent journalists from the Global South on the ground here (indeed, I featured some of their work in my dispatch for CJR on Tuesday) and many more covering COP remotely; many Western journalists, meanwhile, have shone a spotlight on very vulnerable countries, both in their coverage and during live events such as those at the Climate Hub. Still, as far as physical representation goes, media is very clearly part of the broader, highly unequal trend.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
BBC: "COP26: Rich countries ‘pushing back’ on paying for climate loss"
8 NOVEMBER 2021
"Le-Anne Roper, lead negotiator on loss and damage for the Alliance of Small Island States, wants a new finance goal for loss and damage: 'It is the only way we will be able to give our people a better chance at surviving.'"
- Category: 1.5°C Press
ANTIGUA NEWSROOM: "PM says COP26 turned out to be just another public relations exercise"
8 NOVEMBER 2021
"#COP26 turned out primarily to be a public relations exercise for a number of leaders, and the type of ambitious commitments that we require in order to address these existential issues, those commitments weren’t made.” — Prime Minister Gaston Browne, Antigua & Barbuda
- Category: 1.5°C Press
