Following last week’s presentation to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka, former President Bharrat Jagdeo has travelled to Warsaw, Poland – the location of this year’s United Nations (UN) climate meeting. In Warsaw, the former president has joined with other world leaders to emphasise the urgency of global action on climate change.
On Wednesday morning, he met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki- moon to specifically focus on the needs of the smallest and most vulnerable states, including those in the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). The former president supported Nauru’s delegation, who currently holds the chair of AOSIS, in their conversations with the secretary general about the threats to their members.
Jagdeo also briefed the secretary general on the discussions about climate finance that took place among Commonwealth Heads of Government – and they specifically addressed the report of the Commonwealth Expert Group on Climate Finance, which the former president chaired.
Speaking after the meeting, Jagdeo echoed a theme he had stressed with the Commonwealth heads of government – the need for heads of government engagement if climate change is to be addressed.
Heads of govt issue
He said “The world has committed to finalising a legally binding climate agreement by 2015 – that is now just two years away. If we are to have a chance of averting catastrophic climate change, climate change has to become a heads of government issue between now and then.
“Leaving it to environment ministers or officials will be inadequate. That is why I fully support Secretary General Ban Kimoon’s plans for a Climate Summit in New York next year,” said Jagdeo.
At the same time, the former president emphasised that the international community could do much more between now and 2015 to make a practical difference for the world’s most vulnerable countries.
He said: “In my engagements with the leaders of AOSIS, they emphasised their practical needs today – not in 2015. There is a lot the world can do to help the world’s most vulnerable countries. Negotiations for a post-2015 agreement are an important part of that.
“But so are practical interventions today, to help build hurricane-proof hospitals and schools; to make agriculture and other economic activities more resilient to climate events; to create new financial mechanisms that make clean energy more attractive.
“These are practical solutions that can be delivered today. Not only do they make moral and economic sense – but they are indispensable to building trust within the international community that the world is serious about addressing climate change,” he said.
In parallel with his advocacy for the more vulnerable countries, the former president continued to highlight the important role that forests can play in future climate solutions. On several occasions, he emphasised the power of partnerships between developed countries and forest countries on deforestation.
Ambitious partnership
He joined an announcement by the governments of Colombia, Norway, the UK and Germany, which will be working together through an ambitious partnership to provide performance-based payments across Colombia’s Amazon region.
This partnership – potentially covering 40 million hectares of the Amazon – will join with Brazil’s Amazon Fund and Guyana’s national forest mechanism to significantly expand the proportion of the Amazon that is generating payments for climate services.
At the same meeting, the governments of the U. S., UK, Germany and Norway announced their commitment of US$ 280 million to a new World Bank Bio-Carbon Fund to support more sustainable agriculture in countries like Colombia and Indonesia.
Jagdeo praised both Colombia’s vision and the new donor programme, and highlighted the importance of continuing to spread the good examples of partnership that are starting to emerge.
The meeting was addressed via video by U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who emphasised the importance of tackling deforestation as part of a global climate agreement – points which were also picked up the UK secretary of state for the environment, Ed Davies, Chief U. S. Negotiator Todd Stern, Indonesian Presidential Advisor Pak Heru and the Norwegian and German environment ministers.
High- level event
On Thursday night, the former president attended a high-level event hosted by the Indonesian government; whose US$ 1 billion forest programme is one of the three largest in the world (the other two being in Brazil and Guyana).
The former president joined the Indonesian and Norwegian environment ministers, as well as the head of the United Nations Environment Programme Achim Steiner as the Indonesian government provided a detailed overview of their work to date.
The former president spoke again of the importance of leadership from forested countries such as Indonesia and spoke of how Guyana was starting to see the fruits of several years of hard work as funds from the Guyana-Norway partnership start to flow into Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
However, he highlighted that partnerships should not be limited to countries like Indonesia, Guyana, Brazil and Colombia, but should include countries in Africa which were left out.
He also re-iterated the importance of a functional REDD+ mechanism in a global climate agreement, noting that negotiations to achieve this were ongoing in Warsaw and must be completed there.
