DILI, 26 september 2023 (TATOLI) – Timor-Leste’s Prime Minister, Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão called on the rich countries to pay the developing world for climate havoc and damages.
Gusmão said wealthy countries owe poorer ones for climate change, saying therefore payments from high-emitting countries to mitigate the harm that climate change has caused in the most vulnerable parts of the world is a must.
He said that a small country like Timor-Leste and many other islands in the Pacific are vulnerable to the impact of climate change, including rising sea levels, rising temperatures, tropical storms, droughts, environmental changes, wildfires, heatwaves, floods, etc.
Gusmão calls for payments from high-emitting countries to pay low-income countries compensation for the climate damage and chaos.
He said Timor-Leste and Pacific and low-income countries produced very little of the pollution driving climate change: “But, a small island country in the Pacific is submerging because of the rising sea level.”
“We have to be part of the least developed countries to ask the big countries that destroy the climate to compensate us. Because we are the victims and we are suffering,” said Gusmão.
Last year, The New York Times, reported that for 30 years, developing nations have been calling for industrialized countries to provide compensation for the costs of devastating storms and droughts caused by climate change: “For just as long, rich nations that have generated the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet have resisted those calls.”
After participating in the 2022 Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP27), Timor-Leste called on the developed countries to double their provision of adaptation climate finance to offset their contribution to the environmental crisis.
On april 4, 2021, torrential rain overwhelmed the city of Dili, and 12 municipalities, causing severe flash flooding, landslides, and destruction.
Following the catastrophe, the Secretariat of State for Civil Protection reported more than 30,0000 affected households, 46 fatalities, and 11 missing.
Journalist: Filomeno Martins
Editor: Nelia Borges
