Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has appealed to the other Commonwealth countries to heed the plea of the Pacific nations for a more ambitious cap on global warming and to help place this on the global agenda.
Bainimarama was speaking at the Fifteenth Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers’ Meeting held at the margins of the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The Prime Minister participated at this event in his capacity as Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Bainimarama told the leaders that while the Paris Agreement is an important first step, the cap on global warming agreed on there to arrest the negative impacts of climate change is not enough.
Rather than a cap of two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, Bainimarama told the Ministers the Pacific is pressing for a more ambitious target of a cap of 1.5 degrees.
He told leaders, in Fiji’s case, three at-risk villages have already been relocated.
“The position of Fiji and the other members of the Pacific Islands Development Forum is very simple. While we regard the Paris Agreement as an important first step, the cap on global warming that we agreed on there to arrest the negative impacts of climate change is not enough. Rather than a cap of two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, we are pressing for a more ambitious target of a cap of 1.5 degrees. We are convinced that this more radical course of action – necessitating deeper cuts in carbon emissions – is absolutely essential. Because the latest scientific reports on warming clearly demonstrate that a two degree cap is not enough to save us.”
“We are especially vulnerable in the Pacific in that three low lying countries – Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands – are destined on current projections to sink beneath the waves altogether. In Fiji’s case, we have already relocated three at-risk villages. We will need to move some more in the near future. But our biggest fear is the extreme weather events associated with global warming, of which we have had a terrifying recent experience.” said Bainimarama
Bainimarama said the Pacific also needs a firmer commitment from the developed world to give vulnerable nations access to the levels of funding required to step up adaptation and mitigation programs and to be able to meet carbon reduction targets.
“The other principle threat is to the health of our oceans and seas – the pollution, over fishing and loss of marine environments that threatens the welfare of coastal communities the world over. I ask you all to give your full support to the High Level UN Oceans Conference that Fiji and Sweden will be co-hosting in New York next June. We need urgent action to formulate a comprehensive and holistic global plan to save our oceans and seas. And Fiji believes that this is an area in which the Commonwealth can take a particular lead.” said Bainimarama