Ten days of climate talks wrapped up in Bonn, Germany, on Thursday with negotiators unable to agree on key issues ahead of the Cop28 summit in December. Developing countries that are especially vulnerable to climate change say richer ones are failing to deliver the funding they need to weather the worst effects of global warming.
“Climate change is not a North versus South issue,” UN Climate Change chief Simon Stiell said at the closing session in Bonn on Thursday.
“This is a tidal wave that doesn’t discriminate. The only way we can avoid being swallowed by it is investing in climate action.”
Last year's UN climate summit in Egypt, Cop27, reached a landmark deal to help vulnerable countries cope with climate-enhanced disasters, but failed to toughen up commitments to tackle emissions, despite backing from more than 80 countries.
This was again the big question among scientists and climate activists who gathered in Bonn over the last two weeks to establish a road map ahead of the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December.
No room for fossil fuels
They are pleading for a more rapid expansion of renewables, and a phase out of oil, coal and gas, given the significant proportion of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions produced by these energy sources.
But major oil and gas exporters are keen to shift the focus, arguing the world can reduce carbon emissions without ditching the fossil fuels that generate them.
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg again warned politicians they needed to take more ambitious action.
"It will be impossible for us to stick to the 1.5-degree limit without a rapid, equitable, fossil fuel phase-out," she told a press conference on the sidelines of the Bonn talks earlier this week.
'Death sentence'
She was referring to the 2015 Paris Agreement, at which world leaders pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions enough to prevent the Earth's annual temperature rising by more than 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius, and thus slow runaway global warming.
"It is already a death sentence to countless of people living on the frontlines of the climate crisis," Thunberg said.
Bangladesh is a case in point. It's the seventh most vulnerable nation to climate change, but it produces only a fraction of the world's greenhouse gases.
Shamim Ahmed Mridha, a climate activist from Bangladesh, says his country suffers from up to 14 types of natural disasters a year, and the long-term effects on the population are often ignored or overlooked by wealthy nations.
He says that as sea levels continue to rise as a result of global warming, salinity increases and affects both soil and water, impacting well-being and livelihood, especially for women and girls.
"The salinity is impacting on people’s psychology, health, agriculture and lifestyle," he told RFI at the Cop27 climate summit last November.
Women worse affected
Many health problems are linked to salinity, such as hypertension, stroke, dysentery, diarrhoea and skin disease. Women are more exposed because of their greater consumption of water compared to men, especially during menstrual, maternity and postnatal periods, Mrindha explains.
According to him, more young women have begun taking the oral contraceptive pill to avoid having their periods so they don’t have to wash in salty water where they run the risk of urinary tract infections or other problems.
Although Bangladesh is to be among the initial recipients of assistance from the Global Shield against Climate Risks, a long-requested financial protection structure for the most climate-vulnerable economies, how it will be implemented remains to be seen.
Although investment from wealthy nations is needed, Mrindha says leaders have to be careful of how this money is spent and learning from locals about what can work on the ground.
Adaptation strategies
Nayma Qayum, associate professor of political science at Manhattanville College in the US, agrees.
"The global shield will speed up disbursement of funds under emergency conditions, which is also extremely important. However, it remains to be seen whether the global North will live up to their promise," she told RFI.
"Climate reparations are only the beginning, and it is important to think about what is next," Qayum insists, adding that is time for the global South to take a lead in climate change action.
"While technological innovations hold some promise, the international community needs to centre the global South in sharing local knowledge. Being at the forefront of climate change, global South countries have long been implementing mitigation and adaptation strategies," she told RFI.
She explains that local action that is driven by the affected countries themselves – for example with geography-specific flood protection mechanisms, saltwater-resistant crops and local knowledge on climate adaptation.
"Climate change cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach – especially one that is driven by the global North," she says, adding that women in particular have solutions that need to be heard.
Women part of the solution
In her book "Village Ties: Women, NGOs, and Informal Institutions in Rural Bangladesh", Qayum describes how informal networks among rural women, supported by organisations on the ground, can step in when government bodies are inefficient.
Climate change reduces access to drinking water, increases food insecurity, and affects peoples’ health, she says. "Because women often eat last in rural households, food scarcity means grater malnutrition among women and young girls. Girls leave school early and are married at a younger age as parents struggle financially due to affected livelihoods."
In Bangladesh and across the global South, "women’s leadership is paramount to social change", she says. Finding solutions to the climate issues will only be possible if they are part of the conversation.
