Lima, 11th December 2014: Maldives has urged for a decisive outcome in the UN climate negotiations taking place in Lima. Speaking at the plenary meeting of the 20th Conference of the Parties to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Ambassador Ahmed Sareer, Permanent Representative of Maldives to the United Nations emphasised on the need for a negotiated text in Lima in order to arrive at a strong, legally binding climate agreement in Paris in 2015. He said that “We do not want to be in Paris to get perished.”
He said that the Maldives as a small, low-lying island state, is among the most vulnerable and least defensible countries to the projected impacts of climate change. These countries have been subjected to to losses and damages that cannot be mitigated nor adapted to, and therefore, stressed on the establishment of a credible mechanism to address loss and damage, while at the same time emphaising equally on mitigation and adaptation.
In his statement, Ambassador Sareer gave information on the on-going water crisis in Male’ city, following a fire that cut-off the water supply last week. He said that the water situation “is a stark example of the vulnerability of small island developing states like the Maldives that has no natural fresh water sources”.
Underscoring the issue of finance as a fundamental building block of the climate talks, the Maldives urged the need for clear commitments by the developed country Parties that need to be contained in the new agreement. Referring to the recent pledges to the Green Climate Fund as a positive step forward, the Ambassador said “as a small island developing state that is constantly facing an existential threat, the current pledges are simply not enough”.
Ambassador Sareer noted that while the country’s share of global emission is negligible, the Maldives has embarked on an ambitious programme of low carbon development. He said that the government of Maldives is striving to make the country resilient.
Adopted at the ‘Rio Earth Summit 1992’, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international environment treaty entered into force on 21 March 1994. Maldives signed and ratified the convention in 1992.
