Posted on 14 December 2023
On Monday, the draft text of the Global Stocktake was released, and has since come under criticism from the global community for its inaction on progressing towards a fossil free future.
Minister Cedric Schuster of Samoa and Alliance of Small Island States Chair says that the draft’s inclusion of “weak language on fossil fuels is completely insufficient. It does not refer to a phase out at all.”
“As SIDs, we feel our voices are not being heard. We are greatly concerned that this lack of platform to air our views has resulted in weak language that will obliterate our chances of maintaining the 1.5 degree Celsius warming limit”, he says.
Marshall Islands Natural Resource and Commerce Minister has also spoken out on the document, stating that his nation “cannot and will not accept an outcome from this COP that does not set us on a course for a future that stays within the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature limit". Climate change, in particular sea level rise, poses an extensional threat to the Marshall Islands, with its highest point only two metres above sea level.