Interview with H.E. Mr. Ronald Jumeau at #COP25 (Part 1)

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- What is happening now is people are blowing up Article 6 into this huge thing because they are negotiators who will not know what to do with their life if there is not something to negotiate. The fact remains we are reaching the end of negotiations - it is now implementation and action. We got all these IPCC reports on oceans and cryosphere, on land, on 1.5 °C, and we cannot spend more time in rooms like this, we should be out on the ground. But still my fellows negotiators will say to me: "Yes, but we still haven't sorted out climate finance because we need the climate finance and etc.". 

 

What I am hoping is when going to 2020 it generates the push for more ambitious NDCs. Because I am here now despite people saying that some of the biggest countries will not be ready. I was just listening people today: "Did you hear that the major emitters will not be ready with more ambitious NDCs?". Oh, come on.

 

Yesterday I spoke at an event - and I am coming from a small island developing state but nowadays we speak as a large ocean state, we speak as a big ocean state (BOS). We are BOS because we are very big ocean territory. Now we are flipping the narrative and instead of speaking as a victim we are speaking as incubators of change, incubators of solutions, and we are offering to provide solutions to problems that we did not create. And we are partnering with the people who created the problem to solve the problem they created. Because we have to move to action and (...) always have been good at speaking truth to power and leading from the front.  We started at 1.5 °C long time ago, at the Poznan COP (2008) before Copenhagen (2009), because we knew this was coming out we started since then. And the trouble with the negotiations is that eventually everybody agrees at the (?). By the time they agree it will cost us a lot. For example, we said when it was mitigation - "If you don't mitigate you are going to have to adapt". Then we will be on adapting and start asking for adaptation money. Then the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) we were accused for being adaptation people. We have been never adaptation people. We have been mitigation and emission people from the beginning and we are up till now. We are ocean states. We will do whatever to save our ocean. We are going to put sea grass, mangroves, on our next NDC and etc. But that doesn't solve the problem. The problem with the ocean is emissions, it is not in the oceans, it is not the people of the oceans, it is the emissions. We have to go back to the emissions - that is where the NDCs are.

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The SIDS said this to the world. When it is adaptation they (other parties) said "Oh now you are adaptation not mitigation". We said: "Look, we will exchange adaptation for mitigation, for emissions, anytime". The more you cut your emissions is the less we adapt. Then the SIDS started warning but we went to adapt. We went talking about adaptation. Then the SIDS were the first to commit to loss and damage and the SIDS said: "If you don't adapt, if you don't do mitigation the more we will have to adapt." We are going to reach a stage where adaptation is not enough or when adaptation cannot cope. We are going to go into loss and damage. And as everything with climate change - it all comes quicker than you think. Even now on a side event they said - "We were wrong." We are already in loss and damage. Look what happened to the Bahamas, look what happened to Fiji. It's been happening. 

 

But the problem is that now we are still fighting for loss and damage, the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) is a big subject here, and they are beginning to discuss loss and damage because even developed countries now understand that they are suffering. Their advantage over us is that when we are hit our adaptive capacity, or our capacity for loss and damage, is much less then yours. So, even if you are hit by 5 degree hurricane the difference is your ability to adapt and to respond. That is the difference. It will take a lot more suffering by the developed countries before they reach ours (suffering). By the time when they say "Oh, my god, the SIDS were right", the SIDS are gone. Because they didn't react fast enough and they are not responding to the science fast enough. And the irony is that the science is coming from all over the world but a lot of the science is coming from the developed countries because they have the means. I was talking to ocean institutes in the US, I have been talking to many others. The science is coming from your own people telling that. So, when you don't respond to us, and (...) always make sure that we are advised by the best science in the world (Climate Analytics, Potsdam Institute...), so whenever (...) takes scientific position no one ever challenges us on science because everyone knows that science is not coming from those tiny islands, it is coming from the best centers of the world. 

 

AOCs (?) are always ahead, the pack. By the time everybody catches up it is going to be a great cost, we are going to suffer a lot for you to catch up and admit that we were right. What I am hoping is - can 2020 be the turn around when everybody goes for action? It is only day three and I am hearing maybe not. You know, I was at COP21 and up to the two last days of COP21 we didn't have an agreement. Then the high ambition coalition got together and the High ambition coalition was not countries, it was individuals - I was part of the High ambition coalition - and then they pushed for something at the last moment. COPs do this, this is what COPs do, right? They take things to the edge and then they say we cannot leave because went too far.

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