Dubai — The Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) are facing high exposure and vulnerability to an increasing number of climate-related disasters such as droughts, desertification, floods, cyclones and landslides, says President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi.
Dr Masisi, who is also the Group's Global Chairperson made these remarks during the high-level meeting of the LLDCs held under the theme; Addressing Unique Climate Vulnerability of LLDCs through Partnerships.
The uniqueness of LLDCs, he said meant that the countries were destined to face unique challenges and vulnerability occasioned by climate change.
He posited for instance that the geographical locations of LLDCs forced them to depend on neighbouring states for business transactions with the rest of the world; a thing that he said came at a cost.
"We have to go through complex transit routes. These transit systems often face serious threats due to extreme weather events," he said citing extreme heat, floods, or snow that he said could seriously damage road surfaces thereby jeopardising connectivity.
His audience learnt that all these hindrances halted trade further putting strain on the LLDC's ability to compete in dog-eat-dog global markets.
"These make us inherently uncompetitive in the global trading system," he remarked.
President Dr Masisi said for instance that between 2012 and 2022, 447 climate-related disasters affected 170 million people across the LLDCs, which was double the global average across the same period.
Moreover, he said millions of people had been affected by droughts and floods annually in the LLDCs, the most recent being the 46 million people affected by disasters in 2022 alone.
He said cyclone Idai in 2019 caused an estimated US$1 billion infrastructure damage in Southern Africa while cyclone Freddy in 2003 damaged over 5 000 kilometres of roads affecting vital transit routes between the port of Beira in Mozambique and Malawi.
Also, the President said land surface air temperatures in these countries had risen nearly twice as much as the global average. He said they were affected by desertification and recurring dry spells that undermined food security, livelihoods and economy.
"These challenges have far-reaching consequences especially for LLDCs as they trigger a vicious circle of food-water energy insecurity, worsening poverty and increasing the risk of conflicts," he said.
These persistent challenges, Dr Masisi said had led to climate migration.
Water scarcity has also become a serious challenge and threat to the LLDCs populace.
With a plethora of challenges, President Masisi said that it was ironic that LLDCs did not feature prominently in the mainstream climate negotiations.
To this end, he called on the international community to accord due consideration to the group of countries that made LLDCs to participate in the climate change negotiations as a group going forward.
The group was pinning its hope on COP28 to promptly respond to the many challenges they were grappling with.
"We fully share the urgency of acting now with ambitious and rapid emissions cut, responding to the findings of the first-ever global stocktake. We agree that all countries need to act on this to achieve the 1.5 degrees Celsius target," said President Dr Masisi.
The group desires to have the loss and damage fund fully operationalised without delay and to on-board LLDCs.
"We also want to have our presence in the governing body of the board," said the President.
United Nations Secretary Genral, Mr Antonio Guterres took part in the meeting and commended President Masisi for his strong leadership of the group and Botswana.
He expressed his admiration for the great strides achieved by the Southern African nation in the form of good governance, social cohesion, middle-income status and sustainable development.
Like President Masisi, the UN chief was worried by the fact that the specific challenges that the LLDCs were grappling with had not yet attracted the attention of the international community although well documented.
"LLDCs are on the forefront of climate change chaos confronting a wide range of dramatic impacts desertification and prolonged droughts, catastrophic belt sea loss," he said adding however, that the countries stood a better chance to reap the rewards of renewable technologies.
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To achieve high and sustainable levels of energy transition, the UN chief stated that LLDCs would need a lot of support from the international community.
Boosting the loss and damage fund and fulfilment of the promises made towards the fund by the developed nation was therefore of utmost importance.
Mr Guterres said time had arrived to overhaul the international financial architect to be able to respond to the current needs of LLDCs and the developing world as far as climate change was concerned.
He promised the LLDCs of the UN support and pledged to mobilise the organisation's system to make sure the next UN conference slated for Kigali in Rwanda next year in June becomes a success.
King Letsie III of the Kingdom of Lesotho shared other global leaders' sentiments and the need to act with promptness especially the operationalisation of the loss and damage fund to address the climate change chaos that LLDCs were battling with.
BOPA
