Papua New Guinea will boycott next month’s UN climate summit, its top diplomat said Thursday, branding the negotiations aimed at curbing global warming “a total waste of time” because of the actions of big polluting nations.
“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 said in an interview with 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 is often dubbed one of the “lungs of the earth”.
Impoverished, flanked by 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.”
It is an increasingly common critique levelled at the United Nations’ premier climate summit.
Previous COP meetings have struggled to shed perceptions that big emissions-belching economies are holding back climate action.
Climate funds set up through COP to help developing nations have also been dogged by claims of poor administration and sluggish bureaucracy.
But Papua New Guinea is one of the first nations to voice a full-throated call to boycott the annual gatherings altogether.
– Expensive ‘talk fests’ –
“Why are we spending all this money going to the other side of the world going to these talkfests,” said Tkatchenko.
Tkatchenko said this stance had been applauded by fellow Pacific nations.
Low-lying Pacific island states such as Tuvalu and Kiribati are severely threatened by even moderate sea level rises.
“I’m speaking up on behalf of the smaller island states that are worse off than Papua New Guinea. They were getting no traction and acknowledgement at all.”
Papua New Guinea would instead seek to strike its own climate deals through bilateral discussions, said Tkatchenko, flagging that negotiations were already under way with Singapore.
“With like-minded countries like Singapore, we can do 100 times more than COP.
“They have a big carbon footprint, and we would like to think about how they can work with Papua New Guinea to fix that up.”
Papua New Guinea is one of five Pacific nations involved in a pivotal International Court of Justice case that will test whether polluters can be sued for neglecting their climate obligations.
A key meeting ahead of COP29 ended in frustration earlier this month, with countries making little progress over how to fund a new finance deal for poorer nations.
COP — or conference of parties — is the top United Nations climate change conference, an annual summit in which nations look to hammer out legally binding climate commitments.
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