By AFP - Agence France Presse
“Carbon neutral” countries demand credit at COP29
Sara HUSSEIN
They are some of the world's smallest nations, but a group of countries that claim to absorb more carbon than they emit is demanding attention at the UN COP29 negotiations.
Bhutan, Panama, Madagascar, and Suriname rarely make the headlines at the annual climate conference, lost among the rich nations and big emitters that hog the limelight.
By coming together to highlight their unusual status, they hope to change that.
“Our biggest request is recognition,” Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay told AFP in an interview in Baku, where the countries launched their ‘G-Zero Forum.’
“If you don't recognize this very important fact, a fact born out of decades of sacrifice... why would any country take the idea of achieving carbon neutrality seriously?”
Tiny Bhutan has a population of less than 800,000 and has taken advantage of its Himalayan topography to become a hydropower giant, supplying renewable energy to neighbors like India.
There is still no official UN designation for carbon-neutral or carbon-negative countries.
However, the World Resources Institute's Climate Watch database claims that Bhutan emits so little that it contributes 0.0% of global emissions.
For years, the country has publicized its policy of prioritizing “Gross National Happiness” overgrowth, an approach that has become more challenging as young people leave the country in search of jobs.
“We didn't become carbon neutral and negative automatically,” said Tobgay.
“Sacrifices had to be made. Sacrifices are still needed.”
“Should we cut down our forests? Should we mine our land?” he asked.
Maintaining carbon neutrality “is expensive. It doesn't happen automatically.”
And even Bhutan's current economic growth - based largely on hydropower and agriculture - is threatened by climate change.
“Our big request is that other countries pursue net zero more aggressively,” he said.
The COP29 negotiations are heavily focused on the need to increase climate finance for developing countries, with some demanding that the existing annual figure of $100 billion be increased 10-fold.
Tobgay said he was in favor of an “ambitious but realistic” approach.
“You can talk about trillions, and it will remain just talk, and then we sacrifice the billions we could have gotten otherwise,” he said.
“So let's be realistic.”
sah/lth/fg
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