Mr. Speaker, I was recently privileged to speak at a meeting of parliamentarians of countries most vulnerable to climate change in Bangladesh.
For many of the world's poorest countries, climate change is not an academic debate but rather a pressing reality faced every day, which threatens energy, food, health, livelihoods, water, in total, human security. If human security was being threatened by war, countries would rise to the challenge to protect the vulnerable. Why not then with sea level rise? We must therefore refocus the climate change debate on humanity, human rights, climate justice and the personal.
The most vulnerable countries understand: 2015 is already too late; the 2°C target will likely be missed; some islands will likely become submerged; and their hopes for enhanced support have continually been disappointed.
Children playing on Bangladesh streets invite the government “to taste climate change”. It is salty, they explain, because salt water is already inundating water supplies.