Davis: Political changes stalling climate progress

The Ba­hamas Prime Min­is­ter Philip Davis says changes in gov­ern­ment and shift­ing na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties are un­der­min­ing ef­forts to tack­le the cli­mate cri­sis, warn­ing that small is­land de­vel­op­ing states can­not af­ford to keep in­her­it­ing promis­es that are nev­er ful­filled.

Speak­ing to the Guardian Me­dia on the side­lines of COP31 in An­talya, Türkiye, Davis said the in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate ne­go­ti­a­tions must move be­yond di­a­logue, de­c­la­ra­tions and com­mu­niqués to­wards con­crete ac­tion that coun­tries can re­ly on, re­gard­less of changes in po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship.

He ar­gued that while there has been po­lit­i­cal will among coun­tries to ad­dress cli­mate change, changes in ad­min­is­tra­tions have re­peat­ed­ly dis­rupt­ed progress made through the Unit­ed Na­tions cli­mate process, which has been run­ning for al­most three decades.

“The chal­lenge with COP over the last 29-plus years is the fact that we in­her­it­ed promis­es made by oth­ers and, de­pend­ing on the good­will of in­di­vid­u­als, we car­ried those promis­es and we have not been able to de­liv­er,” Davis said.

“Where­as there is the po­lit­i­cal will, I think it’s just that po­lit­i­cal change has been the en­e­my of progress in this space that we have been fight­ing for, par­tic­u­lar­ly small and de­vel­op­ing states like ours.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said his ex­pec­ta­tion for COP31 was that coun­tries would con­tin­ue press­ing for im­ple­men­ta­tion rather than al­low­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions to be­come an­oth­er ex­er­cise in mak­ing com­mit­ments with­out mean­ing­ful fol­low-through.

“This COP, I trust that we will con­tin­ue to press for ac­tion as op­posed to con­tin­ue di­a­logue. We want con­crete out­comes, quite apart from com­mu­niqués and de­c­la­ra­tions,” he said.

Davis called for mech­a­nisms to be es­tab­lished that would pro­tect cli­mate com­mit­ments from be­ing re­versed when­ev­er a new gov­ern­ment takes of­fice.

He said in­com­ing ad­min­is­tra­tions of­ten in­tro­duce their own pri­or­i­ties, chal­lenges and ap­proach­es to cli­mate change, re­sult­ing in de­lays or the aban­don­ment of ini­tia­tives pur­sued by their pre­de­ces­sors.

“We need to find a mech­a­nism where we could en­trench gains that could not be re­versed be­cause of a po­lit­i­cal change,” he said.

De­spite his con­cerns about the pace of in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate ac­tion, Davis main­tained con­fi­dence in the COP process, de­scrib­ing its short­com­ings as struc­tur­al chal­lenges that must be ad­dressed rather than rea­sons to aban­don the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

On the in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult prospect of lim­it­ing glob­al warm­ing to 1.5 de­grees Cel­sius above pre-in­dus­tri­al lev­els, Davis ac­knowl­edged that the world had moved be­yond the thresh­old, de­scrib­ing this year as par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing.

“I’ve been warn­ing that we’re not go­ing to meet this thresh­old from 2021,” he said.

How­ev­er, he cau­tioned against sur­ren­der­ing to the prospect of miss­ing the tar­get, ar­gu­ing that there could still be an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­verse the tra­jec­to­ry if coun­tries fol­low through on their com­mit­ments.

“We’re not to lose hope. There may be an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­verse it if we go and do what we say we’re go­ing to do,” he said.

For The Ba­hamas, a low-ly­ing is­land na­tion par­tic­u­lar­ly ex­posed to cli­mate-re­lat­ed threats, the ques­tion of im­ple­men­ta­tion car­ries sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tions for its long-term re­silience and de­vel­op­ment.

Davis al­so point­ed to the im­por­tance of re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion, wel­com­ing The Ba­hamas’ for­mal ac­ces­sion to the agree­ment es­tab­lish­ing the Five Seas ini­tia­tive.

The move, for­malised dur­ing a re­cent COP-re­lat­ed en­gage­ment in Mi­a­mi, strength­ens the coun­try’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in a re­gion­al arrange­ment that Davis said it had sup­port­ed for some time.

He de­scribed the de­vel­op­ment as con­sis­tent with his long­stand­ing com­mit­ment to Caribbean in­te­gra­tion, ar­gu­ing that par­tic­i­pa­tion in re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions was an im­por­tant step to­wards strength­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion among Caribbean coun­tries.

“Caribbean in­te­gra­tion has al­ways been part of my agen­da, and every step to­wards that, by be­com­ing part of in­sti­tu­tions and be­com­ing a part of what­ev­er Caribbean is, is al­ways some­thing that I em­brace,” he said.

His re­marks come as Caribbean coun­tries con­tin­ue to push for greater in­ter­na­tion­al ac­count­abil­i­ty on cli­mate com­mit­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly on fi­nanc­ing, adap­ta­tion and sup­port for vul­ner­a­ble states.

For Davis, how­ev­er, the cen­tral chal­lenge re­mains en­sur­ing that agree­ments reached at in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate ne­go­ti­a­tions sur­vive be­yond the gov­ern­ments that sign them.