I’ve got some exciting news to announce.
Part of the UN negotiations on climate change is a ‘shared vision’ exercise. Countries speak to the vision of the world for which they are negotiating. To date, not many concrete ideas had come out of this exercise. Until today, that is.
A group of countries called the Least Developed Countries gave a statement sharing their vision to the rest of the world. Their goal included mandating global targets (something the US in particular has been averse to) and stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions at 350ppm. Hooray for progress!
The LDC is a bloc of 49 countries – 33 in Africa, 10 in Eurasia, 1 in the Americas, and 5 in Oceania. It includes a few of the Small Island States like the Maldives and Tuvalu whose entire countries are threatened by climate change. These countries understand that they are going to pay the first and highest price from global warming. Their vision includes keeping that price low enough that they can survive it, and they just told the world that that means at least 350ppm.
We’re incredibly excited about the announcement and hope to work with many in the LDC countries to make sure their vision spreads.