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Mountain climate petition noted at COP21

09.12.2015

The Alpine Convention, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the Italian delegation expressed concern for mountains as areas that are particularly vulnerable to climate change in statements made during the High Level Segment at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Mountain Partnership, long engaged in advocating for adequate recognition of mountains among the international community, promoted an international petition on mountain ecosystems and peoples affected by climate change. The petition closed on Monday, 30 November with an impressive 6 283 signatures, and the Mountain Partnership declared victory for the achievement that the negotiators representing 195 countries at COP21 would receive the petition’s message.

The petition invited the COP21 delegation to give adequate attention to the impact of climate change on mountain regions and the human communities that depend on them. Because climate change in many mountain areas is advancing faster than in other parts of the world, the petition asks the COP21 delegates is to recognize the global importance of mountain areas as providers of water, hosts of cultural and biological diversity and sources of products essential to humankind as a whole. Mountains are also places of great spiritual, recreational, touristic and historic relevance. However, as the global average temperature rises, mountain glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates while rare plants and animals are struggling to survive over ever-diminishing areas, and mountain peoples, already among the world’s poorest citizens, face even greater hardships.

It was only in the last round of UNFCCC negotiations that a reference to mountains appeared in the draft text of theUNFCCC COP21 Agreement, listing ”small mountainous states in developing countries” in brackets as a group that could be cited as particularly vulnerable to climate change.

Prior to the COP21, around fifteen countries had recognized the vulnerability of mountains to climate change in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), which countries outlined publicly in preparation for the new climate change agreement of the UNFCCC.  A number of mountainous countries, including Columbia, Ecuador, Lesotho, Republic of Seychelles, Switzerland and Tajikistan have outlined climate actions to address the vulnerability of mountains to climate change.

As stated in the petition, international, regional and national governments and other relevant stakeholders are encouraged to take urgent measures to improve the lives and livelihoods of mountain peoples and safeguard mountain ecosystems by promoting adaptation measures, investments and specific policies as well as promoting better understanding of the impacts of climate change to mountain areas. Furthermore, stronger cooperation within existing mechanisms such as the Mountain Partnership and funding mechanisms as well as with global and national climate change governance systems will support sustainable mountain development and better address the effects of climate change in mountain areas.

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