• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’ January 23, 2023
Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom January 23, 2023
IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia January 23, 2023
BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels January 17, 2023
Next
Prev

Rich Nations Leave Island States to Shoulder Impacts, Effort in Climate Crisis

June 27, 2021
Reading time: 4 minutes

https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/compatible-licenses

Manuel de Sousa/Wikimedia Commons

1
SHARES
 

As the nations most responsible for the climate crisis continue to deny and dither, the world’s small island states are fighting hard to save themselves.

One such state is the Republic of Cabo Verde, writes the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). An archipelago of some 10 volcanic islands located about 500 kilometres off the coast of Mauritania in Western Africa, the country is being hammered by climate change, including widespread drought combined with multiple extreme weather events. In one devastating flash flood last September, “nearly three months of rain fell in 24 hours.” 

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

Perennially impoverished, resource-scarce, and now pandemic-stricken (with 24% of the country’s GDP depending on tourism, COVID-19 has devastated the local economy), Cabo Verde is nonetheless leaning in to the climate fight. As part of its recently updated climate pledge under the Paris climate agreement, the country now aims “to reduce emissions by 18% and source 50% of its electricity from renewable energy like wind and solar power by 2030.”

Similarly on the front lines of both climate action and climate impacts is the island of Mauritius, which saw 17% of its coastline disappear under the force of storm surges between 1967 and 2012. In addition to building a sea wall, Mauritius, located 1,100 kilometres east of Madagascar, has pledged “greater use of renewable energy, and the development of a sustainable transportation system, with the aim of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030,” UNDP writes.

And then there’s Jamaica, where recurring and prolonged drought is leaving farmers increasingly worried about crop yields. In 2014, a devastating drought led to a 30% decline in yield, which, together with the impacts of brush fires, led to losses of nearly US$1 billion. Yet the country is responding to the climate crisis with “new sustainable farming practices, irrigation, and water harvesting systems” all helping farmers raise their crops even during persistent droughts. The country has also doubled its climate targets, with a particular focus on preserving its still significant forest cover.

Finally, UNDP highlights the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, located in the so-called “hurricane belt” of the Atlantic. Facing ever-increasing odds of monster storms, the country has “made huge progress in advancing their climate goals,” and is now “proposing a move to 100% renewable energy in the next two decades.” 

In a harrowing first-person story for The New York Times, poet and climate activist Bernard Ferguson describes the long-term impacts of Hurricane Dorian on his own island nation of the Bahamas. “Grand Bahama and the Abacos were once covered in dark green foliage that complemented the emerald waters; now long stretches had faded to brown, even grey,” he writes. “Two-storey waves had blown apart wide sections of shoreline. Once-gorgeous mangrove swamps—habitat for algae and crabs and bonefish, and the land’s defence against a storm’s surge—were overwhelmed by Dorian’s salt water, and large swaths of them lay dead, their brittle shells shimmering in the heat.” 

Ferguson explains how “doubling wind speed from 75 to 150 miles per hour can equate to 256 times more damage potential” during an extreme hurricane. “While the strongest hurricanes in the Bahamas’ history once topped out at 160-mile-per-hour sustained wind speeds, Dorian’s was 185—a difference that, per the same scale, means more than three times the damage power.”

That “handful of miles per hour,” he adds, is “the difference between tearing down power lines and tearing up concrete.” 

In his vivid narrative, Ferguson also brings up a concept that will have critical importance for island states like Cabo Verde, Mauritius, Jamaica, and Antigua and Barbuda. Loss and damage, considered by many to be one of three pillars in the Paris Agreement, “seeks to build support for joint financing, commensurate with different economies’ contributions to climate change, to address all the destruction of resources, homes, ecosystems, and livelihoods that mitigation and adaptation cannot prevent,” he explains.

Since the 2015 Paris conference, some island states and other developing nations have pleaded—largely in vain—for “clear and predictable” finance streams, with Harjeet Singh, a Climate Action Network International senior advisor, telling Ferguson that a recent proposal by some developed countries to tap the Green Climate Fund for loss and damage monies would be to take from a coffer already half-empty. 

Noting that actual losses and damage from the climate crisis will run “between $290 billion and $580 billion a year by 2030,” Singh warned that climate finance “is something that really rich countries, particularly the U.S., have made sure there is no progress and not even discussion on.”  

Such obstruction, he said, has meant that “money that should have gone to education, health care, infrastructure is now being diverted to emergency response and rehabilitation and reconstruction, which puts developing countries into a vicious cycle of poverty and debt.”

Though U.S. officials like Vice-President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for climate justice during the Leaders’ Summit on Climate hosted by the U.S. in April, Ferguson writes, neither they nor any of the other leaders present explicitly raised the matter of loss and damage funding.



in Climate & Society, Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Community Climate Finance, COP Conferences, Environmental Justice, Health & Safety, International Agencies & Studies, Jurisdictions, Small Island States, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

RL0919/wikimedia commons
Finance & Investment

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2k
@tongbingxue/Twitter
Ending Emissions

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
238
Rachel Notley/Facebook
Jobs & Training

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
234

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2k
Weirton, WV by Jon Dawson/flickr

IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia

January 23, 2023
477
Rachel Notley/Facebook

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
234
EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
180
@tongbingxue/Twitter

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
238
Massachusetts Clean Energy Center/flickr

1.5°C Is Doable. The Barriers Are All Political.

January 16, 2023
360

Recent Posts

Sergio Boscaino/flickr

Dubai Mulls Quitting C40 Cities Over ‘Costly’ Climate Target

January 24, 2023
78
hangela/pixabay

New UK Coal Mine Faces Two Legal Challenges

January 24, 2023
40

Gas Stoves Enter U.S. Climate Culture War, Become ‘Bellwether’ for Industry

January 22, 2023
70
Jeff Hitchcock/flickr.

BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels

January 23, 2023
488

Exxon Had the Right Global Warming Numbers Through Decades of Denial: Study

January 17, 2023
223
willenhallwench / Pixabay

Ontario Greenwashes with ‘Misleading, Illegitimate’ Emission Credits

January 16, 2023
308
Next Post
Visitor7/Wikimedia Commons

Flexible Demand, Greater Electrification Can Drive ‘Significant’ Carbon Cuts

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}