AOSIS chair: 1.5C target must remain within reach

The Al­liance of Small Is­land States (AO­SIS) is re­fus­ing to aban­don the 1.5-de­gree Cel­sius warm­ing tar­get, in­sist­ing that gov­ern­ments must ac­cel­er­ate cli­mate ac­tion and en­sure promised fi­nanc­ing reach­es vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties as ne­go­ti­a­tions con­tin­ue at COP31.

AO­SIS chair Ilana Seid said the lat­est sci­en­tif­ic warn­ings about the like­li­hood of the world ex­ceed­ing the 1.5-de­gree thresh­old must prompt an ur­gent re­sponse from gov­ern­ments, with greater am­bi­tion on emis­sions re­duc­tions and in­creased fi­nanc­ing for im­ple­men­ta­tion.

Speak­ing in an in­ter­view on the side­lines of the Unit­ed Na­tions cli­mate sum­mit in An­talya, Türkiye, Seid said the ne­go­ti­a­tions were pro­gress­ing large­ly as ex­pect­ed, with par­ties se­cur­ing agree­ment on the agen­da on the open­ing day.