This really isn’t about science, is it
ANALYSIS-Despite the pandemic, frontline nations push ahead on stronger climate plans
The coronavirus pandemic may have delayed the 2020 U.N. climate summit by a year, but for Jamaica, COVID-19 was no reason to stall delivering a stronger climate action plan, just completed as the Atlantic hurricane season starts.
Una May Gordon, director of the climate change division at the island’s Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, said the Caribbean nation aimed to submit its updated “nationally determined contribution†(NDC) to the global effort to battle climate change later this month, after approval by the cabinet.
Jamaica benefited from starting work on its second climate plan early, last July, and had already consulted with key sectors – energy and, this time around, forestry – before the coronavirus hit, Gordon told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
If all goes according to schedule, Jamaica will soon join a handful of other countries that have already met a deadline to unveil more ambitious climate plans in 2020 – including Norway, Suriname, the Marshall Islands and Rwanda.
Submitting plans isn’t quite the same as actually implementing those plans.
This week, U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa appealed to governments not to let the economic and social fallout from the COVID-19 crisis derail their efforts to curb global warming. (big snip)
The largest carbon-polluting countries have yet to announce more ambitious emissions-cutting targets – and many are now distracted by economic recession brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Right, right, a pandemic is a distraction. Only members of a cult would say that.
Mohamed Adow, director of Nairobi-based climate and energy think-tank Power Shift Africa, said COVID-19 should not be used as an excuse by countries to shirk delivering better climate plans in 2020.
Nor should it let rich nations avoid their promise to raise an annual $100 billion in climate finance for developing nations starting this year.
“COVID has shown us that trillions (of dollars) can easily be made available… when the political will is there,†he said, referring to plans for huge coronavirus recovery packages.
Yes, trillions for our own citizens because of the pain of COVID19. 3rd world nations just want free, easy money. Foreign aid used to have strings attached to it. Climate cash, though, is positioned as these nations being owed because those giving the money owe the 3rd world nations because of their big carbon footprints, hence, no strings. Not about science.
