<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/22/small-win-at-cop-on-finance-for-poor-countries-overshadowed-by-failure-on-fossil-fuels>
"“Right now, our people are losing their lives and livelihoods from storms of
unprecedented strength which are being powered by warming seas. Our coral
reefs, the lifeblood of our islands’ food systems, culture and economies are at
a tipping point in dieback. Forest ecosystems are at a tipping point. The
window to protect lives and economies is closing.”
While 194 countries argued for more than 12 hours on Friday night over the
final details of what should be voluntary and what should be a legally binding
commitment as the Cop30 UN climate summit drew to a close, Steven Victor, the
environment minister of Palau, tried to remind them of what they were fighting
for: people’s lives.
“We are dangerously close to a 1.5C global warming overshoot, driven by the
actions of bigger countries,” he said. “Unless we choose the path of course
correction right here and now, leaders are dooming our world to disaster.”
The outcome of the Cop30 climate summit will be measured not in the
abstractions of “shall”, “should” and “agree to” that are the substance of the
more than 150 pages of text gavelled through on the podium, but in lives.
Developing countries are looking forward to a tripling of the finance to help
them adapt to extreme weather – measures such as regrowing mangrove swamps,
erecting flood defences, growing new crops or storing water against drought –
but that language is couched in ambiguous terms. It “calls for efforts to at
least triple adaptation finance”.
The $120bn (£92bn) a year promised by 2035 must also be compared with the
$360bn they are projected to need. That makes a huge difference to countries
with overstretched budgets that are already spending on climate defence instead
of health and education.
Brandon Wu at Action Aid said: “Ten years from now is an unimaginably long time
for communities facing life-threatening impacts now. Unless developed countries
are pressed hard, this decision does little but lock in climate injustice for
the foreseeable future.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
