Vice President Faisal Naseem has stressed the importance of asserting the urgency and seriousness that climate change deserves to protect the planet's most vulnerable places and communities. He made the statement while speaking at the high-level round table on Climate Change and the Sustainability of Vulnerable Communities, held as part of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt.
Addressing the debate, Vice President Naseem stressed that the world's most vulnerable countries are at the front lines of the climate crisis and at the greatest risk of losing lives and livelihoods. He shed light on the recent flooding in Pakistan that affected 33 million people and destroyed 1.7 million homes and warned that similar events would likely become more frequent as global temperatures continue to rise. He noted that food and water security, human health, and biodiversity will be drastically affected even in a 1.5-degree world and underscored the need to address such transboundary issues with a global response and drastically scale up finance and action.
Additionally, Vice President Naeem said for many countries, loss and damage are already a reality and will become more so the slower nations act on mitigation and adaptation. He noted that one troubling example for the Maldives concerns the damage to its coral reefs, which are the source of so much of the country’s culture and livelihood.
Furthermore, Vice President Naseem cited predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that global warming of 1.5 degrees celsius will result in the disappearance of between 70- 90% of coral reefs and stressed that it would have detrimental effects on the Maldives in terms of jobs, tourism, fisheries, and the loss of entire ecosystems.