By AFP - Agence France Presse
Papua New Guinea to boycott UN climate summit for 'waste of time'
Papua New Guinea on Thursday declared a boycott of next month's UN climate summit, calling the negotiations on global warming a “waste of time” full of empty promises from big polluters.
Although many have criticized the annual COP summit in the past, it is rare for a government to reject the UN's main climate negotiations outright.
“There's no point in going if we're falling asleep because of jet lag because we're not getting anything done,” Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko told AFP ahead of November's COP29 summit in Azerbaijan.
“All the big polluters in the world pledge and commit millions to help with climate relief and support. And I can tell you now that it's all going to the consultants.”
The island of New Guinea is home to the third largest expanse of rainforest on the planet, according to the World Wildlife Fund, and has long been celebrated as one of the “lungs of the earth.”
Impoverished, flanked by the ocean, and already prone to natural disasters, Papua New Guinea is also considered highly vulnerable to the dangers of climate change.
“The COP is a complete waste of time,” said Tkatchenko.
“We are tired of the rhetoric and the merry-go-round of getting absolutely nothing done in the last three years.
“We are the third largest rainforest nation in the world. We are sucking the pollutants out of these big countries. And they're getting away with it.”
The COP summit in 2015 produced the historic Paris Agreement, under which almost all the world's countries agreed to reduce emissions to limit the rise in global temperatures.
But subsequent meetings have been marked by growing criticism, fueled by a perception that big polluters are using their influence to limit further climate action.
Meanwhile, the adaptation funds set up by the COP to help developing nations have been accused of a sluggish bureaucracy that fails to grasp the urgency of the crisis.
Last year, civil society groups banded together to call for a boycott of the COP summit, organized by the United Arab Emirates, claiming that the meeting would “greenwash” the oil state's poor climate credentials.
Disappointed with the proposed emissions cuts, dozens of African nations led a temporary walkout of developing nations during the 2009 COP negotiations in Copenhagen.
And Ukraine has pressured its allies to avoid this year's summit if Russian leader Vladimir Putin speaks out.
But Papua New Guinea is among the first nations to make such a strong call to boycott the COP summit altogether.
“Why are we spending all this money going to the other side of the world, going to these talking festivals?” said Tkatchenko.
Papua New Guinea is one of five Pacific nations involved in a crucial International Court of Justice case that will soon test whether polluters can be sued for neglecting their climate obligations.
Low-lying Pacific nations such as Tuvalu could be almost entirely swallowed up by rising oceans in the next 30 years.
Tkatchenko said the decision to pull out of the COP negotiations was applauded by other Pacific bloc countries.
“I'm speaking on behalf of the smaller island states that are in a worse situation than Papua New Guinea. They were not getting any kind of attention and recognition.”
Instead, Papua New Guinea would try to conclude its own climate agreements through bilateral channels, Tkatchenko said, pointing out that negotiations were already underway with Singapore.
“With like-minded countries like Singapore, we can do 100 times more than the COP.
“They have a big carbon footprint, and we'd like to think about how they can work with Papua New Guinea to address that.”
A key meeting ahead of COP29 ended in frustration earlier this month, with countries making little progress on how to fund a new financial deal for the poorest nations.
The COP - or conference of the parties - is the United Nations' main conference on climate change, an annual summit at which nations seek to determine legally binding climate commitments.
sft/cwl
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