Keeping global temperature gain in check is a matter of survival, COP31 president says

Restricting global warming is a matter of survival and too many countries are shirking their responsibility to cut emissions, the official presiding over the UN's flagship upcoming ‌climate conference said on the final day of the meeting's precursor event on Thursday.

"Today is a time where everyone is running away from responsibility," Murat Kurum, Turkey's climate minister and president of this year's UN COP conference, COP31, said at a press conference. "We do not have a single minute, a ‌single day to lose." He was speaking on the final day of pre-COP, which brought thousands of delegates to Fiji this week and ‌took a group from 30 countries to Tuvalu ahead of the main event to be held in Antalya, Turkey, in November.

Reflecting on his visit to the tiny low-lying atoll nation of Tuvalu on Tuesday, Kurum said mothers and children were under increasing threat from every high tide. Pacific Island nations sought to use the pre-COP in their region to ⁠embed their ​priorities into the COP31 agenda.

These include ⁠better access to funding for resilience projects, protection of oceans, and holding warming beneath 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels — something the UN Environment Programme says is impossible ⁠in the near term but could be achieved over time with emissions reduction. But Kurum said holding to that limit is crucial.

"This 1.5 degree goal ... is ​a matter of survival," he said. "The survival of cultures, history, memories, your homeland, your homes." Tuvalu consists of thin strips of land ⁠on average around 2 metres (6.6 feet) above sea level. It is suffering from increasing flooding, saltwater encroachment and volatile weather.

Kurum contrasted the threat that Tuvalu will disappear with commitments by NATO ⁠nations ​to increase defence spending to 5% of gross domestic product. "What does it mean to spend 5% for defence if you don't have a country to live on? What does it mean to defend it?" he said.

"Financing of $1.5 billion for 1.5 degrees will save the Pacific. ⁠It's that easy. Life will continue in Tuvalu. Children will be smiling again." Kurum pledged that Pacific goals will be taken seriously at COP31 in ⁠Turkey. Representatives of around 30 ⁠countries signed a declaration on Tuesday endorsing those goals and calling for "deep, rapid and sustained emissions reductions."

Turkey is a significant user of coal and oil whose carbon dioxide emissions have risen sharply in recent decades ‌but it has pledged ‌to cut them to net-zero by 2053 and is expanding renewable energy.