Sydney, Australia
COP29 is โa complete waste of timeโ, says Papua New Guinea Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko, announcing his country’s boycott of the climate conference, fed up with โthe merry-go-round of doing nothing at all over the last three yearsโ.
โThere’s no point in going if we fall asleep because of jet lag, because we’re not going to do anything,โ says the minister a few days before the event, to be held from November 11 to 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
โAll the world’s major polluters are pledging millions of dollars to help combat climate changeโ, notes the Minister. โI can already tell you that all this is going to be outsourced to consultantsโ.
โWhy are we spending all this money to travel to the other side of the world and take part in these conferences?โ he asks.
Mr. Tkatchenko assures us that his position is applauded by other Pacific nations.
These low-lying island states, such as Tuvalu and Kiribati, are seriously threatened by even moderate sea-level rise.
Bordered by the ocean, Papua New Guinea is considered highly vulnerable to the perils of climate change.
In May, a massive landslide engulfed an entire village and buried over 2,000 people in the highlands of Enga province, in the east-central part of the island of New Guinea.
– No recognitionโ –
โI’m speaking on behalf of the small island states whose situation is worse than Papua New Guinea’s. They have received no attention and no recognitionโ, denounces Mr. Tkatchenko.
Rosanne Martyr, of the Berlin-based Climate Analytics Institute, had already told AFP at the end of August that countries such as Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Micronesia had already lost โmore than 1% of their GDP due to rising sea levelsโ.
โPapua New Guinea will instead seek to conclude its own climate agreements through bilateral discussionsโ, argues Mr. Tkatchenko, pointing out that negotiations were already underway with other nations in the region.
โWith like-minded countries like Singapore, we can do 100 times more than the COP,โ he assures.
Papua New Guinea is one of five Pacific nations involved in a crucial case before the International Court of Justice, which will determine whether polluters can be prosecuted for neglecting their climate obligations.
The island of New Guinea, whose eastern half is occupied by the state of Papua, is home to the third largest expanse of tropical forest on the planet, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Papua New Guinea has vast reserves of gold, copper, nickel, natural gas and timber, which have attracted investment from many multinationals, but it has an average development index.
โWe’re the third-largest forestry nation in the world. We suck the pollutants out of these big countries. And they get away with it,โ laments the Minister.
The country’s population has more than doubled since 1980, increasing pressure on land and resources and exacerbating tribal rivalries.
The number of international leaders expected in Baku remains uncertain.
COP29, described as โfinancialโ, will begin six days after the US presidential election. Its main challenge will be to obtain a commitment from the rich countries most responsible for global warming to substantially increase aid to poor countries to combat climate change.A โpre-COPโ meeting held in Baku at the beginning of October enabled participating countries to note that a significant gap still separates them on the financial question, according to observers.
The current amount of climate aid, set at 100 billion dollars a year and due to expire in 2025, is considered to be well below what is needed. The Climate Action Network, a group of NGOs, recently estimated in a letter sent to negotiators that โat least a trillion dollarsโ would be needed.
Humaniterre with AFP
