Statement from Pa Ousman Jarju, Chair, Least Developed Countries group, UNFCCC

After the launch last week of the 2nd Edition of The Climate Vulnerability Monitor, the chair of the Least Developed Countries at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, provide its impression on this important tool to monitor overall vulnerability to the climate change impacts.

The latest Climate Vulnerability Monitor demonstrates with piercing clarity that it is the poorest and most vulnerable countries that have the most to lose unless we rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This report confirms many earlier scientific assessments, but this time adding hard economic numbers to the earlier qualitative conclusions and the results are shocking.

Most importantly, this report confirms what we are experiencing: climate change and the carbon economy is killing the world’s poorest people – and our economies.

The International Energy Agency tells us we are running out of time to change the direction of our carbon intensive energy system if we are to keep warming below 2°C (and of any chance at below 1.5°C).

And now this report shows that the Least Developed Countries too, are running out of time: what country or group of countries can accept an 8 per cent GDP loss by 2030?

The industrialised world promised us funding that would help us with adaptation and mitigation strategies – some from new and additional “fast start finance” that should be available now, building up to US$100 billion a year by 2020.

Despite these and various global level decisions to provide finance for adaptation in our countries, we are still waiting – and we are dying waiting for it.