NAIROBI, Kenya, May 15 – Barbados Ambassador for Climate Change and Climate Vulnerable Forum representative Elizabeth Thompson has proposed exploring mandatory financing and legally binding mechanisms to compel countries to accelerate methane emissions reduction, warning that voluntary climate commitments are failing to deliver the urgency required to avert catastrophic global warming.

📻 Breaking It Down

Speaking virtually during the opening day of the two-day Regional Parliamentary Seminar on Methane Emissions and Climate Action in Nairobi, Thompson said climate vulnerable countries were increasingly bearing the brunt of a crisis they did little to create, even as global temperatures edge closer to dangerous thresholds.

“We are not surviving unchanged. Our economies are being devastated, our economies are being destroyed,” she said during the forum themed “African Parliaments for Climate Action: Reducing Methane, Promoting Development.”

Thompson, who also serves as Deputy President of the Senate of Barbados, argued that while carbon dioxide remains central to long-term climate stabilization efforts, methane reduction offers the fastest route to slowing warming in the short term because of the gas’s high heat-trapping capacity and relatively short atmospheric lifespan.

📌 What You Need to Know

Methane is more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, though it remains in the atmosphere for a much shorter time, meaning cuts in emissions can quickly reduce warming.

“We have only one emergency option and that is pulling the emergency brake of methane,” she said.

The Barbados diplomat revealed that Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and the Climate Vulnerable Forum were exploring the possibility of a legally binding framework to reduce and ultimately eliminate methane emissions, particularly in the fossil fuel sector.

“All efforts to date have been entirely voluntary,” Thompson said.

“Our experience has been that when there is some mandatory element, it is then that countries really do take action, both in terms of policy and programming.”

The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) is an international partnership of 68 developing nations most threatened by climate change, representing 1.74 billion people.

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya