Small countries have a crucial role in urging wealthier nations to take climate change seriously, as the issue is an existential one for them, according to the UK’s special Representative for Climate Change.

Ensuring that politicians commit to climate change required action from all, including civil society, small States, businesses and financial investors, Nick Bridge said.

“Small vulnerable Island States had a huge impact in achieving the Paris Agreement on Climate Change as they showed the rest of the world that the issue was an existential one for them.

“Businesses also have to shift their models to sustainable ones as otherwise they won’t have a future, while financial centres have to invest money in green centres if they want a financial return in the future. Everyone has a stake and an opportunity to play a role.”

Mr Bridge was speaking to The Sunday Times of Malta following a debate on ‘Climate Change and Small States’. It was held last week in Malta in the run-up to the UN Climate Summit in September and as part of a series of events marking the 70th Anniversary since the foundation of the Commonwealth.

It follows the publication of a UN landmark report warning about the extinction of a million species, and freak weather patterns earlier this year, when northern Europe basked in high temperatures and the southern part flooded.

Back then Mr Bridge had tweeted: “Here I sit in deepest existential unease knowing what collectively these bonkers (diplomatic term) record-breaking weather events and trends across the world probably mean.”

What do they mean?

We are on track for complete environmental and climatic breakdown

Mr Bridge noted that according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if global warming is kept to 1.5°C in the next decade, the world would lose 70 to 90 per cent of its coral, which is what sea life depends on. Currently the world is on track for a global warming of 3.5°C throughout this century.

“That is just one illustration of the existential part – we are on track for complete environmental and climatic breakdown.”

Global warming is already at 1.5°C in some parts of the world, including the Pacific, where hurricanes and cyclones were destroying whole economies, he said, adding that while many in the wealthier countries were aware of the consequences intellectually, they were not feeling them physically.

Nick Bridge. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

For Mr Bridge, climate change is “undoubtedly the biggest challenge of the century and it will be disastrous if we don’t tackle it”.

While the world has not ran out of time yet, it was incredibly urgent to tackle climate change.

The UK is aiming at taking a leading role in this regard, hoping that other nations will follow suit.

In 2008 its Parliament passed the world’s first climate change legislation, which was recently reviewed by an independent climate committee in order to remain compatible with scientific developments.  

The UK is trying to walk the talk and for the first time since 1882, this week it experienced seven days of coal-free power generation. Up until six years ago, 40 per cent of its power generation depended on coal, and the UK is hoping to completely phase coal out by 2025, investing, instead, in offshore wind generation among others.

However, Mr Bridge pointed out that the ground-breaking 2008 Act knew its origins in campaigns by civil society demanding action.

The recent protests, he added, reflected a renewed realisation of the urgency that calls on the government to do what is needed in view of what science was forecasting.

Asked to comment about small States, he said that while they were more vulnerable, they also had a big opportunity to become more sustainable and self-sustaining.

Among others, the Scottish Orkney islands were developing tidal power generation, becoming increasingly and completely self-sustaining on renewable energy.

“Faced with climate change, the Orkney community felt the need to become less vulnerable and more resilient and has therefore gone further faster than the rest.

“Smaller States do have a harder time accessing international capital, while renewable energy is also not as cheap when it is not on a huge scale, however, these challenges make such States very innovative, creative and self-sufficient.”

Still, wealthier countries needed to ensure that small States had access to expertise, technical assistance and finance.

Mr Bridge added that the whole world was in a critical political phase at the moment. September’s UN Climate Summit, next year’s UN’s Climate Change Conference and the Convention on Biological Diversity could put us all back on a sustainable track, he said.