ANTIGUA & BARBUDA, May 29 (IPS) – As leaders of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) gather for the fourth International Conference on SIDS in Antigua this week, top officials from the United Nations and the World Bank are calling for urgent action to tackle SIDS to help address their problems. unique challenges and plans for the next decade.
Selwin Hart, UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General and Assistant Secretary-General of the Climate Action Team, had a candid assessment of a United Nations SDG media zone event, on the sidelines of the conference, known as SIDS4.
“The international community has failed to keep its promises to these small countries, but it is not too late to make amends,” he said.
Hart says the world has the “tools, solutions, technologies and finances” to support SIDS, but change lies in the political will of the countries with the greatest responsibility and capacity, especially the G20 countries, which are responsible for almost 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“Only $3 billion of the $100 billion target has been mobilized annually for the small island developing state, and you compare that to the $36 billion in profits Exxon Mobil made last year. It represents one-tenth of the climate finance that SIDS attract and mobilize. We must correct these injustices and that must be at the heart of the global response to the demands and needs of small island states.”
Nature-based solutions for countries on the frontlines of climate change
“Both natural and man-made disasters hit SIDS first,” Valerie Hickey, the World Bank’s Global Director of Environment, Natural Resources, and Blue Economy, told the Media Zone. She said it is for this reason that the international lender describes SIDS as ‘where tomorrow happens today’, a nod to the role of small islands as ‘innovation incubators’, adapting to climate change through the creative and sustainable use of natural capital . biodiversity and nature-based solutions.
She says natural capital is also shifting the narrative, focusing less on the vulnerabilities of SIDS and more on their ingenuity.
“We don’t talk enough about the fact that on small islands, natural capital is the driver of jobs and GDP,” she said. “It’s fishing. It is nature tourism. These are critical for most small islands and will ultimately not only deliver jobs and GDP, but will be the only adaptation technology available and affordable, and affordability matters for small islands.”
For small island states that want that adapt to a changing climate, nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based adaptation are essential, but it is also necessary to tackle the persistent problems that hinder growth and access to finance. This also includes a lack of current, relevant data.
“The data is too fragmented. It’s on people’s laptops. It’s on people’s shelves. No one knows what is out there and that goes for the private sector and the public sector,” she said.
“In the Caribbean, where there is excess capital in retail banks, $50 billion of that could be used to invest judiciously in nature-based solutions, working towards the kind of longer-term infrastructure that would be fit for purpose , both disaster recovery and long-term growth: that doesn’t happen because of a lack of data.”
As part of SIDS4, the world’s small island states appear to be tackling this decades-long data problem head-on. Speaking at the opening session of the event, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, made a much-praised statement Center of excellence will be determined at this conference and that this Global Data Hub for innovative technologies and investments for SIDS will use data for decision-making and ensure that SIDS exists for ten years Antigua and Barbuda Agenda (ABAS) is guided by ‘accuracy and timeliness.’
Disaster risk reduction and early warning systems for all
No discussion of SIDS is complete without recognizing the disproportionate impact of disasters on island states. Kamal Kishore, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, said mortality rates and economic losses from disasters are significantly higher in SIDS than the global average.
“If you look at mortality from disasters, the number of deaths normalized by the countries’ populations, the SIDS mortality rate is twice as high as the rest of the world. If you look at economic losses as a percentage of GDP, globally it is less than one percent; in SIDS, countries have lost 30 percent of their GDP in a single event. SIDS have lost up to two-thirds of their GDP in a single event.”
Kishore says the ambition to reduce disaster losses must match the scale of the problem. He says early warning systems are a must and should be seen by all, not as generosity but as responsibility.
“It is not acceptable that anyone on planet Earth should not have access to advanced cyclone or hurricane warnings. We have the technical means to generate predictions and warnings. We have technologies to spread it. We know what communities need to do and what local governments need to do to respond to these warnings. Why isn’t it happening?”
The Early warning for everyone The initiative was launched in 2022 by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Kishore says that 30 countries have been identified in the initial phase and a third of those countries are SIDS. Gap analyzes have already been carried out and a roadmap for strengthening early warning systems has been drawn up. To achieve this, the organization needs money.
“The world must show generosity and pay the bill. It’s not in billions. It runs into millions and it pays for itself in one go. You invest in early warning in a country and if a major event happens in the next five years, you will have a return on your investment. The evidence is there that it makes financial sense, but we need to mobilize resources to close that gap.”
The road ahead
Thirty years after the first International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS), the three leaders agree that there is hope, but that hope depends on action – an approach to SIDS development that includes financial investment, comprehensive data collection and – management and nature-based adaptation measures.
“It’s not too late,” says Selwin Hart. “What we need now is the political will to put things right for the small island states.”
IPS UN agency report
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
