NGOs call on rich countries to scale up their climate commitments

By Anadolu staff

BERLIN (AA) - Climate experts and representatives of nongovernmental organizations on Friday called on rich countries to scale up their commitments and take concrete steps to phase out fossil fuels.

Speaking at a news conference at the Bonn conference on climate change, senior climate expert Alden Meyer said this week’s talks have not achieved much progress, but there have also been some positive developments.

Meyer said Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, United Arab Emirates’ incoming COP28 president, acknowledged that “the phasedown of fossil fuels is inevitable” during a meeting in Bonn on Thursday.

“First you have to admit you have a problem. I think yesterday we heard Dr. al-Jaber admitted we have a problem. Now the question is how do we deal with it? What’s the next step in the process?” he said.

“Of course, what we’re demanding is to have a formal agenda item on expanding the phasedown language that was agreed in Glasgow (climate conference) for unabated coal, to also include oil and gas,” he stressed.

Meyer, who is a senior associate at the Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G) think tank, underlined that rich countries should assume more responsibility, and do more to help developing and least-developed countries to address climate change.

“It’s a moral responsibility of the major economies, the US, Europe and others, to help countries that are now suffering from the impacts of our past behavior and the current behavior of the US and other large emitters,” he said.

“With climate change, we see just now huge wildfires in North America. We’ve seen flooding, we’ve seen typhoons. We’ve seen disasters around the world. This is coming more fast and furious than scientists imagined a decade or two ago,” he added.

Pratishtha Singh, an expert from the Climate Action Network Canada, said states should take stronger steps to safeguard vulnerable people and ecosystems.

“Negotiations this week started on a very slow mode and there was little engagement overall from the countries on actual concrete proposals,” she said.

Singh warned that international efforts in overall adaptation planning, financing and implementation are lagging far behind the urgency of the need.

“So over the next week, we think that countries must move forward on the substance and outline the frameworks,” she said.

“And also rich countries particularly must scale up their commitments and present a roadmap for doubling the adaptation finance by 2025,” she added.

Li Shuo, a global policy advisor for Greenpeace East Asia, also criticized the reluctance of states to take stronger steps to mitigate global emissions.

“Five days into this session, we still don’t have a formal agenda adopted. We are still waiting for the host of the next COP to be agreed. There remains to also be hesitation for many countries on this urgent need to transition on our energy system,” he said.

Delegates and NGO representatives from around 175 countries are attending the Bonn conference on climate change to discuss major issues and prepare draft decisions for adoption at this year’s COP28 summit in November in the United Arab Emirates.