After a tumultuous night at the negotiations which saw many-core negotiating issues pushed back or even pushed aside to next year, Environmental Ministers addressed the UN highlighting their priorities in the fight against climate change.
Here we present to you today’s key moments from the Alliance of Small Island States.
Credits: UNFCCC.
alliance of small island states
“We stand or else we fall” was one of the last statements that Mr. Omar Antonio Figueroa, Minister of Fisheries, Forestry the Environment and Sustainable Development of Belize gave today, speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island Developing States during the High-Level segment at COP25.
The following are some of the key points Mr. Figueroa made today:
- For Small Island Nation the climate crisis is an everyday problem – “Where I come from this threat is not distant, it is our reality.”
- “The small island nation that I represent embrace our duty to act consistently with the Paris goals and to honour our responsibility with future generations.”
- Regarding the work to come, Mr. Figueroa stated that the Small Island Nations “resolved to bring forward our NDCs by 2020 hand in hand with our ambitious partners.
- “Resolved to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030 and also answer the call to raise ambition for climate adaptation and resilience.”
- “Even though the members of the Alliance of Small Island States contributed less than 1% of global emissions, we are stepping up to enhance climate action in the short term and to demonstrate the rapid and far-reaching changes that are needed and that is achievable over the long term to move to net-zero emissions. We are leading by example.”
At the very end, the representative of the Small Island Nations insisted that they cannot do this on ower own and closed stating the in this struggle against the climate crisis “we stand or else we fall”.