Bonn climate talks: countries must avoid a Paris hangover

'The Blue Marble' taken by 1972 Apollo 17 lunar mission

As delegates meet in Bonn, Germany, for the first UN climate talks since the Paris Agreement was successfully negotiated in December, Christian Aid has warned that countries must not let momentum stall.

Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid's Senior Climate Advisor, is attending the summit. He said: "Often after a big moment like the Paris deal, countries get complacent and become bogged down in squabbles about the minutiae of the UN process. It is vital that we avoid a Paris hangover in Bonn.

"In order to keep up the momentum generated in Paris, the agreement needs to be ratified as quickly as possible. Bonn is the perfect place to remind countries to get a move on.

"Countries should also start working on their next round of national commitments. They may want to rest on their laurels, but everyone knows their first round of contributions are not sufficient to keep global warming at safe levels. They need to have their next plans in place for resubmission at the next big political moment in 2018.

"Some of the most important negotiations are going to take place in the ad-hoc working group on the Paris Agreement. It's important that this new track makes early progress in developing a mechanism to increase the ambition of national plans and develops a roadmap to the $100 billion of annual climate finance to be agreed at COP22 in Marrakesh."

Today Christian Aid released a report showing that a billion people will be exposed to climate induced coastal flooding by 2060. Act Now or Pay Later also ranks the cities most likely to suffer both the human and financial cost of such flooding, with Kolkata and Miami topping the respective lists.

Source: Christian Aid