Earth Today | ‘We need reform’

SMALL ISLAND Developing States (SIDS) continue to strategise in furtherance of a better, more secure climate future, as the next global climate talks (COP29) near and with climate impacts, including rising temperatures and extreme hurricanes, a clear and present danger.

To that end, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), which represents the interests of 39 small island and low-lying coastal developing states in international negotiations on climate change and sustainable development, hosted their Leaders Meeting on the margins of the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday.

Among the discussion points was the new 10-year framework, the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (ABAS), which was agreed at the Fourth International Conference on SIDS in May.

World leaders declared in the agenda that “SIDS remain a special case for sustainable development, given their unique vulnerabilities”, while noting their ongoing concern “that SIDS are facing the unrelenting and compounding impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, disasters and natural hazards, health and other social-related challenges and economic vulnerabilities, as well as the progressive deterioration in their ability to withstand external shocks and enhance their resilience”.

Against that background, the agenda calls for wide-ranging interventions, partnerships and financing that enable the resilience of SIDS, in the face of “a rapidly narrowing window out to 2030 to raise ambition and implement existing commitments, in order to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels within reach”.

This 1.5 goal, which is also reflected in the Paris Agreement that governs the global response to climate change, is seen as crucial to the sustainable development of SIDS. AOSIS said on Monday that the implementation of ABAS is therefore critical.

“Implementing the ABAS is key to our resilient development,” noted Samoan Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa, who chairs AOSIS, in a release dated September 24.

“The means of implementation, and the immediate need to establish the SIDS Centre of Excellence are core to ABAS’s success, and our own. A collective and inclusive coordination process will be essential to deliver overarching success towards the sustainability of small island developing states,” she added.

Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, together with Under-Secretary General and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Haoliang Xu, were among the participants at the Leaders Meeting. Other key stakeholders, including Her Excellency Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission; Mafalda Duarte, executive director of the Green Climate Fund; and Vladimir Jares, director of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, were also present.

SIDS leaders, the release revealed, “seized the opportunity to engage with these officials. Several heads of state outlined their countries’ development needs and proffered their guidance for achievement of sustainable development goals”.

Also discussed at the meeting was the urgent need for scaled-up financing for SIDS.

“As SIDS leaders, it can seem that for every move forward, there remains a greater chasm to cross. For every dollar spent on recovery and loan repayments, we forego contributions to our future,” noted Prime Minister Mata’afa.

“We need reform. COP29 and the Fourth Financing for Development Conference can be seen as leading processes, while the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index, Bridgetown Initiative, and the Debt Sustainability and Support Service, as proposed in ABAS, can be our immediate tools in this reform,” she added.

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