South Sudan’s Minister urges shift from “empty promises” to real climate action at Pre-COP29

In an exclusive interview with AzTv during the Pre-COP29 conference in Baku, the National Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation of South Sudan, Pal Mai Deng, emphasised the need for developed nations to take concrete actions in addressing global warming. He expressed frustration over the lack of implementation of past promises and called for real decisions to be made to assist developing countries in adapting and recovering from climate shocks.

Azernews presents:

During the Pre-COP29 conference in Baku, South Sudan's National Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Pal Mai Deng, spoke candidly about the frustrations faced by developing nations in the global effort to combat climate change. When asked about suggestions for the ongoing meeting, Deng stated:

"I do not have any suggestions from the suggestions of other countries, mainly the developing countries, because for us we are saying that the developing nations are actually responsible for this global warming and the less developed nations bear the cost. And for us to come out of that, we need to see that the developed countries are actually making their contribution to make sure at least a benchmark, say, billion US dollars or 10 billion or trillion is made available for us to be able to mitigate, adapt and recover from climate shock.

But we have had such kinds of discussions in the past, from 1970s, from 1990s maybe to early 2000s, until COP28, where world leaders come together to discuss how the questions of global warming can be addressed and where a lot of promises are made by the developing nations, but yet when it comes to implementation or translations of those pledges into practical terms, everything remains more of a whitewash. And then I think our message from developing countries is that let this commitment or let the world move away from climate debates and discussion to real decisions and action, so that a result is achieved."