One of nature’s finest: PNG has long been celebrated as one of the ‘lungs of the earth’ and this file photo shows Varirata national park near Port Moresby. — AFP
THE country has declared a boycott of next month’s UN climate summit, branding the global warming negotiations a “waste of time”, full of empty promises from big polluters.
While plenty have criticised the annual COP summit in the past, it is rare for any government to totally dismiss the UN’s premier climate talks.
“There’s no point going if we are falling asleep because of jet lag because we’re not getting anything done,” Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko told AFP ahead of November’s COP29 summit in Azerbaijan.
“All the big polluters of the world promise and commit millions to assist in climate relief and support. And I can tell you now – it’s all going to consultants.”
The island of New Guinea is home to the third-largest expanse of rainforest on the planet, according to the World Wildlife Fund, and has long been celebrated as one of the “lungs of the earth”.
Impoverished, flanked by the ocean and already prone to natural disasters, Papua New Guinea is also considered to be highly vulnerable to the unfolding perils of climate change.
“COP is a total waste of time,” Tkatchenko said. “We are sick of the rhetoric as well as the merry-go-round of getting absolutely nothing done over the last three years. We are the third-biggest rainforest nation in the world. We are sucking up the pollutants of these major countries and they are getting away with it scot-free.”
The COP summit in 2015 hammered out the landmark Paris Agreement, under which almost every country in the world has agreed to slash emissions to limit soaring global temperatures.
But subsequent gatherings have been dogged by growing criticism, stoked by a perception that big polluters are using their sway to limit further climate action.
Papua New Guinea is among the first nations to have voiced such a full-throated call to boycott the COP summit altogether.
“Why are we spending all this money going to the other side of the world going to these talkfests?” asked Tkatchenko. — AFP
