Obama Invokes Hawaiian Proverb to Urge Action at Climate Summit

(Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. President Barack Obama extolled the importance of protecting island nations most vulnerable to global warming as he started a two-day campaign to convince world leaders the U.S. never relinquished its fight against climate change. 

“Islands are the canary in the coal mine in this situation,” Obama said Monday in his first public address at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. “They are sending a message now that if we don’t act -- and act boldly -- it’s going to be too late.”

Obama’s presence comes as part of a show of force by U.S. officials, including Cabinet secretaries and dozens of lawmakers, who are fanning across the conference to argue that the country never stopped fighting climate change, even as former President Donald Trump pulled the nation out of the Paris Agreement and dismantled regulations critical to achieving promised emissions cuts. 

Obama, who spent much of his childhood growing up in Honolulu, began his day in a session on island resilience, sitting alongside representatives from Fiji, Grenada and the Marshall Islands -- nations particularly vulnerable to encroaching seas. 

Obama invoked a Hawaiian proverb that he said translates to “unite to move forward.”

“It’s a reminder that if you want to paddle a canoe, you better all be rowing in the same direction at the same time,” he said. “Every oar has to move in unison; that’s the only way to move forward.”

‘Sacrifices to Make’

Obama also nodded to shortcomings by developed nations responsible for the bulk of historic greenhouse gas emissions. 

“All of us have work to do. All of us have sacrifices to make,” Obama told about 200 delegates and others in the island nations event. “But those of us who live in big, wealthy nations -- those of us who helped to precipitate the problem -- we have an added burden to make sure we are working with, and helping, and assisting those who are less responsible” for global warming but “are more vulnerable to this crisis.”

Rich nations, including the U.S., have fallen short of their commitment to provide $100 billion in climate finance for developing countries annually by 2020. The U.S. is on track to provide about $3 billion in fiscal 2022, and President Joe Biden has pledged to deliver $11.4 billion annually by 2024.

Obama, who helped forge the Paris Agreement -- as well as breakthrough climate announcements with China that paved the way for it -- will try to rally delegates during a separate address Monday afternoon and will speak with young people working to curb climate change.

In his afternoon speech, Obama is set to reflect on progress made since the Paris pact’s signing while imploring governments, companies and civic groups to act more aggressively to keep warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels, a critical threshold. 

Right now, even if countries fulfill their Paris Agreement pledges, the world will blow past that target, with devastating consequences for island nations, Obama said. But he stressed the world must overcome the obstacles of legacy energy systems, vested interests and domestic politics.

It won’t happen overnight, Obama said, adding that there will be both setbacks and laggards, but “we just have to be determined” and “continually pound away at the problem.”

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