Ministry of
Environment Energy and Climate Change
Seychelles views on
the Outcome of COP 24
The UN Climate Change conference (COP 24) started on 2 December and ended on
15 December 2018 in Katowice, Poland, one day more after the scheduled end of
the COP24 climate summit, to enable negotiators to finally come up with the
“Katowice Climate Change Deal”. Seychelles delegation was led by Minister
Wallace Cosgrow, Minister for Environment, Energy and Climate Change,
assisted by Wills
Agricole, Principal Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, Ambassador Ronny
Jumeau and other members.
These
two weeks of intense negotiations, parties had reached a decision on most parts
of the Paris Agreement Rulebook, paving the way for the pioneering treaty to
come into force in 2020 as planned. Poland's energy Minister and COP24 President Michał
Kurtyka brought the gavel down on proceedings on the night of Saturday 15
December.
‘It has certainly been a long two
weeks with a combination of intense negotiations, participating at High Level
side events of climate actions, attending AMCEN meeting, meet the press and
held several bilateral with key friendly countries. The outcome reflects the
efforts Seychelles together with the Alliance of Small islands Sates (AOSIS)
made to find a balance, and though Seychelles and all the members of AOSIS are
not fully satisfied in the outcome, however, we recognize compromises needed to
be made to move forward.’ said Mr Agricole.
Minister
Cosgrow delivered a National
Statement on Climate Change at the High-Level Segment of Wednesday 12 December urging
on countries to work together to
prevent and mitigate any adverse impact particularly the developmental
aspirations and survival of SIDS like Seychelles.
Highlights
of the main discussions are summarise below;
IPCC’s 1.5 Special
Report
COP24
started against the backdrop of the IPCC’s 1.5 Special Report. The
Report represents the
best available science on climate change and the findings are unsettling, to
say the least. Unless there is a change by how the world generates and consumes
energy in the next decade, the opportunity to hold global warming to 1.5
degrees C may irretrievably slip away. Already, with about 1.1 degree of
warming since pre industrial times, there have been severe climate change
impacts globally and
warming beyond 1.5 degrees would be catastrophic.
The
Report made an enormous impression at COP24 and now more people are familiar
with the importance of the 1.5-degree Celsius temperature goal than ever
before. Seychelles’ delegation and
all the members of AOSIS were
disappointed that Parties were unable to welcome and accept the report and its findings as part of a COP decision to
facilitate the mainstreaming of the report into this Climate Change process.
Seychelles urged
Parties to increase their efforts in light of the IPCC stark warning.
Paris Agreement
‘Rulebook'
The
completion of almost all parts of the Paris Agreement ‘Rulebook' is a major
milestone accomplished at this session in Poland, although the crucial rules
governing carbon markets must still
be decided. It sends a very clear signal of the global community's intent to
continue to aggressively press forward on the urgent task of addressing climate
change.
Ambition Climate
Action and Talanoa Dialogue
On
ambition, all 197 Parties heard important stories at COP24 as part of the
Talanoa Dialogue on how governments are responding to the climate crisis.
Seychelles and all AOSIS members urge leaders to build on this progress by
exploring how existing solutions can provide avenues for them to immediately
ramp up climate action.
Therefore,
everyone including Governments,
the business community, and civil society must now turn their attention to the
next phase of the process--ratcheting up ambition, and undertaking critical
on-the-ground implementation through policies, investments and concerted action
to avoid the damages that will arise from unabated emissions.
Seychelles
look forward to the Secretary General’s climate summit next year, where
countries will outline how they intend to increase action.
Climate Finance
Climate change is already fast
outpacing our ability to respond and developing countries will keep falling
behind unless developed countries deliver on the commitments they made in Paris.
This will give developing countries and vulnerable communities adequate
financial support to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change.
Adaptation
On
adaptation, the COP text decision reflects parties’ nuanced concerns across
several decision texts. But, here, as elsewhere, real progress on adaptation
demands scaling up finance, commensurate with the increasingly severe
challenges Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) faces.
Loss and Damage
There
has been progress for Loss and Damage, particularly the explicit language in
transparency and the Global Stock stake. It is increasingly clear that the
world better appreciates the reality of loss and damage, but Seychelles feels
that real support to address it
still needs to be delivered soon.
2019 UN Secretary
General’s Climate Summit
Seychelles
will now look forward to the Secretary General’s climate summit next year and
hope all Parties can join together then to celebrate truly ambitious action.
COP25
The
next COP will be held will be a Latin American COP hosted by Chile in
partnership with Costa Rica Seychelles hope the two countries will bring new
energy and new urgency to these talks. As far as we know, they are two clean
energy leaders on the front line of climate change. Seychelles look forward to their leadership.
Conclusion
To
conclude Seychelles call on all countries to wake up to the IPCC alarm and
start or continue national and collective processes for more ambition. The UN
secretary general, together with the Chilean COP25 presidency, with support
from Costa Rica, must all actively drive these efforts.
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