's speech at the High-Level
Ministerial round table on pre-2030 ambition: first iteration of
this annual event agreed at COP26 as part of the tools to keep
1.5 alive.
Thank you, Minister Jorgenson.
Can I just remind all of us friends, that at COP26 we did resolve
collectively to peruse efforts to limit the temperature increase
to 1.5 degrees.
I have always said what we agreed in Glasgow and Paris has to be
the baseline of our ambition.
We’ve got to stick to that commitment. We cannot allow any
backsliding.
But we are already at 1.1 degrees global warming and I know I
don’t have to remind all of you the impact of that around the
world.
Even at 1.5 degrees we are still going to have devastating
outcomes for many millions. As our friend from Bangladesh
reminded us 1.5 needs to be a red line
And this cannot be the COP where we lose 1.5 degrees.
So, we’ve got to fight for this and every fraction of a degree
absolutely makes a difference.
And it’s the difference, for very many, including each of your
countries, between a tolerable existence and an impossible
future.
Let me remind you a year ago what Mia Mottley said – in Glasgow
she said 2 degrees “would be a death sentence” for very many
nations around the world.
I believe we can keep 1.5 alive – we’ve got the business
community on our side.
We all would have seen on Saturday, 200 international businesses
signing up a to an open letter in defence of 1.5.
We are seeing impressive sectoral impacts – renewables, zero
emission vehicles.
We’ve heard about that this morning.
Yes, there is a serious work going on with our finances. We need
to be in a place where we can see more in terms of MDB reform, we
need to do more on JETP. Yes, we need to include more on
finance.
But on the 1.5 we need to make sure that we reaffirm our
commitments to that.
We’ve got a G20 leaders meeting going on right now.
They’ve showed leadership last year. They need to show that
again.
They need to, coming out of that G20, to reaffirm their
commitment to Paris and to Glasgow.
In terms of mitigations outcomes here, really quickly there are
four things we need to have.
One is for those countries that have not set out their revised
NDC to do so aligning with 1.5, we’ve got 33 countries that have
already done so including the UK.
Secondly let’s make clear our commitments to the science, no
rowing back on the science, we heard from the science this
morning.
Thirdly, further steps to phasing out coal phasing out fossil
fuel subsidies.
And fourthly we need to agree the legalities on the Mitigation
Work Programme to shift the dial on implementation and
ambition.
The reality is without progress on mitigation we are going to
beyond our ability to adapt and of course I want to see progress
made on loss and damage here but unless we stick to the
mitigation piece all of that is going to be a lot more
difficult.
So, friends in conclusion, we’ll either leave Egypt having kept
1.5 alive or this will be the COP where we lose 1.5.
You need to work out how you want future generations to look upon
this COP and each of us individually as countries.
It’s really up to us to decide, I hope we will decide to keep 1.5
alive, thank you.
