The UN climate conference scheduled for November 11-22, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan, will take place without Papua New Guinea. The country, especially vulnerable to global warming, announced on Thursday, October 31, its intention to boycott COP29, assimilated to a “waste of time.”
“It’s no use going if we fall asleep due to jet lag, because we won’t do anything”declared Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko in an interview with Agence France-Presse.
“All the world’s big polluters are pledging millions of dollars to help fight climate change”the minister pointed out. “I can already tell you that all this will be entrusted to consultants”he said, calling on polluting countries to “get well”.
Justin Tkatchenko, a critic of climate summits, also said there had been “Enough of the rhetoric and the spree of doing nothing in the last three years”.
A population that has doubled since 1980
The island of New Guinea, of which the state of Papua occupies the eastern half, is home to the third largest area of tropical forest on the planet, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Papua New Guinea has vast reserves of gold, copper, nickel, natural gas and timber that have attracted investment from many multinationals, but has a medium development index.
Their population has more than doubled since 1980, increasing pressure on land and resources while exacerbating tribal rivalries.
Papua New Guinea, bordered by the ocean, is considered highly vulnerable to the dangers of climate change. In May, a massive landslide leveled an entire village and buried more than 2,000 people in the highlands of Enga province in east-central New Guinea.
