Christian Aid Warn World Not to Get Climate Complacent

For the first time this year countries will meet in Bonn, Germany to discuss climate, but Christian Aid is urging the world not to put climate change efforts at the bottom of the “to do” list. This is the first time delegates have met for UN climate talks since the Paris Agreement was sealed in December. Christian Aid’s warning comes after they released a report showing a billion people are at risk of climate-induced coastal flooding in the future.

Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid’s Senior Climate Advisor, said: “Often after a big moment like the Paris deal, countries get complacent and become bogged down in squabbles about the minutiae of the UN process.  It is vital that we avoid a Paris hangover in Bonn.

“In order to keep up the momentum generated in Paris the agreement needs to be ratified as quickly as possible. Bonn is the perfect place to remind countries to get a move on.

“Countries should also start working on their next round of national commitments.  They may want to rest on their laurels but everyone knows their first round of contributions are not sufficient to keep global warming at safe levels. They need to have their next plans in place for resubmission at the next big political moment in 2018.

“Where some of the most important negotiations are going to take place is in the ad-hoc working group on the Paris Agreement.  It’s important that this new track makes early progress in developing a mechanism to increase the ambition of national plans and develops a roadmap to the $100 billion of annual climate finance to be agreed at COP22 in Marrakesh.”

Yesterday Christian Aid released a report showing that a billion people will be exposed by climate-induced coastal flooding by 2060. Act Now or Pay Later also ranks the cities likely to suffer the human and financial cost of such flooding with Kolkata and Miami topping the respective lists.