UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 23 (Reuters) – Faced with what they see as an existential threat, leaders of low-lying and island countries have pleaded with wealthy nations at the United Nations General Assembly this week to act more of force against global warming.

The inability of developed economies to effectively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions contributes to sea level rise and particularly endangers island and low-lying nations at the mercy of water.

“We simply do not have higher ground to cede,” Marshall Islands President David Kabua told leaders in a recorded speech at the high-level meeting on Wednesday. “The world simply cannot delay climate ambition any further.”

Countries have agreed under the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change Mitigation to try to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the threshold, scientists say, would avoid the worst impacts of warming. To do this, scientists say, the world must halve global emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.

“The difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees is a death sentence for the Maldives,” President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih told world leaders on Tuesday.

Guyanese President Irfaan Ali slammed big polluters for failing to deliver on promises to cut emissions, accusing them of “deception” and “failure” and warning that climate change will kill many more people than the COVID pandemic -19.

“We have the same hope that the world’s worst emitters of greenhouse gases that affect the well-being of all mankind will also realize that in the end it will be of little benefit to them to become king of a world of dust, ”he added. told world leaders Thursday.

He said small island states and countries with low coasts, like Guyana, will bear the brunt of the impending disaster, despite being among the lowest emitters of greenhouse gases.

“It’s not just unfair, it’s unfair,” he said.

Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group, said there had been a “sense of existential crisis” throughout the annual gathering at the United Nations.

“Beijing and Washington want to show that they are leading the fight against global warming. If the leaders of the small islands fail to get people to listen to this General Assembly, they never will,” Gowan said.

US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he would work with Congress to double funds by 2024 to $ 11.4 billion a year to help developing countries deal with climate change. Read more

The funding would help meet a global goal set over a decade ago of $ 100 billion a year to support climate action in vulnerable countries by 2020.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged to stop building coal-fired power plants abroad, a move widely welcomed. Read more

“WE MUST ACT NOW”

Biden and Xi made their commitments less than six weeks before Oct. 31-Nov. 12 COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says is in danger of failing due to mistrust between rich and poor countries.

President Chan Santokhi of Suriname, where much of the coastal zone is low, called for “ambitious and concrete commitments” to be made at COP26, urging developed countries to re-commit to the 100 billion dollars. dollars per year.

Santokhi said ideals and political commitments don’t mean much if they aren’t backed up by new financial resources.

“In the case of my country, Suriname, and low-lying coastal countries, we are committed to fighting climate change because we are particularly vulnerable even if we have contributed the least to this problem,” he said. declared to the General Assembly.

The Pacific archipelago nation of Palau has warned the world is running out of time.

“Simply put, we must act now to ensure that our children inherit a healthy and reliable future. We must act now before further irreparable damage is done to our planet,” Palau President Surangel said. Whipps Jr., at the meeting.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is preparing to host COP26, on Wednesday called on world leaders to make the necessary commitments and a collective commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

He warned that, on the current track, temperatures will rise 2.7 degrees Celsius or more by the end of the century.

“No matter what it does to the ice floes, dissolve like ice in your martini here in New York City,” Johnson said. “We will see desertification, drought, crop failures and mass movements of humanity on a scale never seen before, not because of some natural event or unforeseen disaster, but because of us, because of what we’re doing now. “

Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Michelle Nichols; Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool

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