Kalain Ho­sein

The Al­liance of Small Is­land States (AO­SIS) re­mains adamant that at the 27th Con­fer­ence of the Par­ties (COP27) of the Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UN­FC­CC) in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, ma­jor emit­ters must do right by the world’s most vul­ner­a­ble coun­tries. These low­er-in­come and small is­land states are on the front lines of the worst im­pacts of cli­mate change.

 
This was the con­sen­sus of 28 heads of state and min­is­ters from the Caribbean, Pa­cif­ic, African, In­di­an Ocean, and the South Chi­na Sea re­gions when they gath­ered at the AO­SIS Lead­ers Break­fast on Sep­tem­ber 22nd. Last week, the event was con­vened on the mar­gins of the 77th Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly at the Unit­ed Na­tions in New York.

 
Ac­cord­ing to AO­SIS, is­lands like Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ue to deal with the dev­as­tat­ing im­pacts of cli­mate change with lim­it­ed ca­pac­i­ty to re­build and re­cov­er. De­liv­er­ing re­marks at the AO­SIS Lead­ers Break­fast via a record­ed mes­sage, Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res shared with the meet­ing the ur­gency in mak­ing the fi­nanc­ing for Loss and Dam­age an agen­da mat­ter at COP27.

 
“We need a tar­get­ed, am­bi­tious glob­al re­sponse – in­clud­ing how to fi­nance loss and dam­age, be­yond our ca­pac­i­ty to adapt. Pol­luters must pay,” the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al de­clared.

 
“Grants and con­ces­sion­al fi­nanc­ing cur­rent­ly fail to ac­count for your is­lands’ unique vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties,” Guter­res ac­knowl­edged while throw­ing his to­tal weight of sup­port be­hind AO­SIS mem­bers in their bid to “en­sure el­i­gi­bil­i­ty and ac­cess to fi­nance.”

 
Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs, Sen­a­tor Dr. Amery Browne, al­so reaf­firmed the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al’s state­ment at the 77th ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

 
“Droughts, wild­fires, floods, and cat­a­clysmic hur­ri­canes and ty­phoons are re­al­i­ties that small is­land states know all too well. At the same time, slow-on­set events such as the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of coral reefs and the in­flux of sar­gas­sum sea­weed threat­en our frag­ile ecosys­tems and the liveli­hoods of our peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly our fish­er­folk and those de­pen­dent on tourism.”

 
He added, “Ac­cord­ing­ly, Trinidad and To­ba­go calls for the full and ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Paris Agree­ment. A ded­i­cat­ed fa­cil­i­ty to ad­dress loss and dam­age un­der the UN­FC­CC Fi­nan­cial Mech­a­nism is an ab­solute ne­ces­si­ty. These ac­tions must be pri­or­i­tized be­cause what is at stake is the very ex­is­tence and vi­a­bil­i­ty of small is­land States.”

 
The sen­ti­ments of the AO­SIS lead­er­ship were sup­port­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter of New Zealand, Jacin­da Ardern, whom AO­SIS Chair Prime Min­is­ter of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Gas­ton Browne praised as a ‘tire­less sup­port­er of small is­land de­vel­op­ing states (SIDS).’ Ardern joined the lead­ers for the open­ing por­tions of their dis­cus­sions and lent whole­heart­ed sup­port to their is­sues.

 
“I don’t need to ar­tic­u­late the prob­lem to this au­di­ence. As Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States, you are on­ly too aware that one ma­jor nat­ur­al dis­as­ter can un­der­mine years of de­vel­op­ment progress,” said Prime Min­is­ter Ardern.

 
The oth­er big-tick­et item be­ing dis­cussed by the is­land lead­ers was the Mul­ti­di­men­sion­al Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty In­dex (MVI) – a new di­ag­nos­tic tool be­ing ad­vanced by the UN that could trans­form the glob­al fi­nan­cial sys­tem and be a ‘game-chang­er’ for SIDS.

 
Prime Min­is­ter Browne is al­so the Co-Chair of the UN High-Lev­el Pan­el on the MVI. It is ex­pect­ed that once the MVI is adopt­ed, it will be used by In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nance In­sti­tu­tions to guar­an­tee con­ces­sion­al fi­nance and debt re­lief so­lu­tions for the most vul­ner­a­ble coun­tries.

 
“We are at a crit­i­cal and po­lit­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive junc­ture for both these ob­jec­tives [MVI and Loss and Dam­age]. There are pow­er­ful forces mo­bi­lized against us who are con­tent with the sta­tus quo. To suc­ceed against them, we must be unit­ed,” urged Prime Min­is­ter Browne.

 
“While the world fid­dles, cli­mate change march­es on un­abat­ed, and the hits keep on com­ing for our Small Is­land States. We must re­dou­ble our ef­forts and en­sure the third pil­lar of the Paris Agree­ment is fi­nal­ly giv­en its due in Sharm El-Sheikh.”