The Pacific Islands Development Forum fully supports the call by Canada and the UK to phase out coal.
PIDF secretary general Francois Martel urged other developed nations to unite and implement the transition from unabated coal-fired electricity and support the Pacific call to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.
“We congratulate Canada and the United Kingdom for championing a global alliance on coal-phase out and encourage other developed countries such as Australia to support this initiative,” he said.
“On one hand, we need to provide support to Pacific countries to ensure they can reach the targets set in the Paris Agreement, on the other hand, we need to pursue advocacy and engagement to ensure that what fell off the negotiations in Paris to achieve the main targets of 1.5 degree Celsius are now fully addressed.”
Mr Martel said much faster and decisive action was needed to phase out coal and prevent coal lock-in and the greater risk of stranded coal mining and coal power station assets and big amounts of already available stocks of coal.
“Urgency and high ambition for drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions need to remain the top priority on the agenda — financing adaptation by development partners should not be the fall-out position for paying lip-service to reducing emissions, nor does it follow the spirit and the letter of the Paris Agreement as ratified,” said the PIDF secretary general.
Canada strives to have 90 percent of electricity from non-emitting sources by 2030.
Original source: Fiji Times
Published on 19 October 2017
