The UN climate conference, scheduled to take place from November 11 to 22, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan, will be held without Papua New Guinea. The country, particularly vulnerable to global warming, announced on Thursday, October 31, its intention to boycott COP29, assimilated to a “waste of time”.
“There’s no point in going if we fall asleep due to jet lag, because we won’t get anything done.”declared Papuan Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko in an interview with Agence France-Presse. “All the world's big polluters are pledging millions of dollars to help fight climate change”noted the minister. “I can already tell you that all this will be entrusted to consultants”he said, calling on polluting countries to “pull yourself together”.
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Being critical of climate summits, Justin Tkatchenko also said he had “enough of the rhetoric and the carousal of doing nothing at all over the last three years”. “Why do we spend all this money to travel to the other side of the world to attend these “conferences”? » he asks himself. Justin Tkatchenko assures that his position is applauded by other Pacific nations.
Highly vulnerable to the perils of climate change
These low-lying island states, such as Tuvalu and Kiribati, are seriously threatened by even moderate sea level rise. Bordered by the ocean, Papua is considered very vulnerable to the perils of climate change. In May, a massive landslide engulfed an entire village and buried more than two thousand people in the highlands of Enga province in east-central New Guinea.
“I speak on behalf of small island states whose situation is worse than that of Papua New Guinea. They received no attention or recognition”denounces Justin Tkatchenko. Rosanne Martyr, from the Climate Analytics Institute based in Berlin, had already explained, at the end of August, that countries like Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Micronesia had already lost “more than 1% of their GDP due to rising water levels”.
“Papua New Guinea will instead seek to reach its own climate agreements through bilateral discussions”argues Justin Tkatchenko, specifying that negotiations were already underway with other nations in the region. “With like-minded countries like Singapore, we can do a hundred times more than the COP”he assures.
Papua New Guinea is one of five Pacific nations involved in a crucial case before the International Court of Justice, which will determine whether polluters can be prosecuted for neglecting their climate obligations.
A “financial” COP
The island of New Guinea, of which the state of Papua occupies the eastern half, is home to the third largest expanse of tropical forest on the planet, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. Papua New Guinea has vast reserves of gold, copper, nickel, natural gas and timber which have attracted investment from many multinationals, but it has an average development index. “We are the third largest forest nation in the world. We suck up the pollutants from these big countries. And they get away with it”deplores the minister. The country's population has more than doubled since 1980, increasing pressure on land and resources while exacerbating tribal rivalries.
Uncertainty remains over the number of international leaders expected in Baku. COP29, described as “financial”will begin six days after the US presidential election. Its main challenge will be to obtain from the rich countries most responsible for global warming a commitment to substantially increase aid to poor countries to fight climate change.
The current amount of climate aid, set at $100 billion a year and expiring in 2025, is considered far below what is needed. The Climate Action Network, a collective of non-governmental organizations, recently estimated in a letter sent to negotiators that it would be necessary “at least $1,000 billion”.
