#COP21: World’s Most Vulnerable Countries Make Important Intervention

The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) will meet on Monday 30 November to adopt a historic Manila-Paris Declaration conveying what vulnerable countries want, commit and plan to accomplish to make the COP21 climate deal and follow-up a success. 

Building on two years of consultations at regional and global level, the meeting will encourage other governments to endorse the CVF declaration. The Declaration, and its associated Road Map, spell out key priorities for the Paris agreement in terms of long-term temperature and mitigation goals, commitments of vulnerable countries and actions the group will work on in the years ahead. It also confirms new CVF members and the Forum’s future, African Chair.

Christian Aid has welcomed the declaration later today by the Climate Vulnerable Forum, 20 countries most at risk of climate change, calling on world leaders at the Paris summit to work towards limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.

The countries, from all corners of the globe, include Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Tuvalu Afghanistan and the Philippines among others.

Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid’s Senior Climate Advisor, provided analysis for the group. He said: “Although today the leaders of the rich and powerful nations will make all the headlines, it is vital that the voices of the world’s most vulnerable countries are heard.

“These countries have grown tired of empty words from world leaders and they cannot afford any more in Paris. They are reaching out between and across traditional negotiating blocs to help build a better and safer future for all of us.

“Vulnerable nations have the unfortunate injustice of being the first and worst affected by climate change, their suffering is partly why we now have a sense of urgency at these talks.

“But we are in danger of making these communities the global ‘canaries in the coal mine’ and letting them suffer by allowing global temperatures to rise even 2 degrees above pre industrial levels. For these countries a 2 degree world is a miserable one and they are right to use their high moral authority to call for bolder and more ambitious action from this summit.”

These particularly vulnerable countries are expected to point out that current country pledges will create a world closer to 3 degrees than 2 degrees. Adow said: “It is vital that nations at this summit agree a way of getting the world on track to below 2 degrees. One way of doing that will be to have a robust mechanism to ratchet up ambition every five years. This ‘ambition accelerator’ is the only thing that will move the world’s climate from a place of danger to a place of safety.”