Closing Session of the 43rd Session of Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 43)

Statement by Angola on behalf of the Least Developed Countries Group

4 December 2015, Paris, France

Thank you Madam Chair and dear colleagues,

Angola on behalf of the LDCs associates itself with the statements made by South Africa on behalf of G77 & China, and Sudan on behalf of the African Group.

We also want to thank you, the co-facilitators and the Secretariat for the hard work during this session in a limited time and to enable the entry into force of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

Madam Chair, we want to bring to your attention an issue that is very close to the heart of the LDC Group. Over two years, we have been engaging together with all Parties in the 2013-2015 Review. We have received inputs from over 70 experts in the Structured Expert Dialogue that has produced its final report that we consider a document of utmost significance to the work we are doing here. To us, the report sends a very clear signal: that the 2°C limit is inadequate and that a strengthened goal of below 1.5°C would be substantially safer in the light of the ultimate objective of the convention.

Madam Chair, we are deeply disappointed that after going through this multi-year process and all the efforts that have gone into it, a handful of countries have upfront rejected to engage in a constructive manner towards a substantive outcome of the 2013-2015 Review in the Joint Contact Group.

This is a direct affront towards the more than 100 countries that are calling for a below 1.5°C goal and we find this completely unacceptable.

We would like to be very, very clear here: the Review is not closed, we don’t have any outcome and this issue has to be taken up at a ministerial level next week. We call on you to convey this message to the COP presidency as a call of the most vulnerable and all Parties that have been working so hard and in good faith under the 2013-2015 Review.

Thank you Madam Chair.