Jamaica, small island states want new push on 1.5C target

As COP3O climate talks kicked off in Brazil's port city of Belem on Monday, opening speeches in the Amazonas hall were heavy on ambition, but just down the corridor there was a stark reminder of what failure looks like.

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Antonio Guterres

“Hurricane Melissa slammed into Jamaica a week-and-a-half ago and every single Jamaican now knows the word catastrophic,” said UnaMay Gordon, a former director of climate change for the Jamaican government and adviser to the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center, which coordinates climate action.

“We lost cultural heritage, 30-year-old churches are lost. A part of our identity was lost with it. People are hurting,” Gordon told reporters. The strongest ever storm to hit Jamaica left dozens dead and caused billions of dollars worth of damage, equivalent to 28% to 32% of last year’s gross domestic product, according to the island’s prime minister. A Melissa-type hurricane at landfall is about four times more likely in today’s climate compared to a pre-industrial baseline, according to a rapid estimate by scientists from Imperial College London. Gordon urged negotiators at COP3O to do more to limit global warming to the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) target set out in the Paris Agreement 10 years ago, and now increasingly in peril.