As Ministers and world leaders from more than 50 countries gather in Nadi for Pacific Pre-COP31 from today, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says we know the science have spoken, our own eyes have seen and he says he knows, doing nothing is no longer neutral, it is a choice.
While speaking during the Ecumenical and Inter-Faith Sunday Service at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Nadi, Rabuka says climate change is not only a scientific problem or an economic one, it is a moral one.
While highlighting scriptures from the book of Leviticus, he says the earth is not ours to exhaust, adding it says no one should carry a burden forever, and it says, there comes a time to set things right.
Rabuka stresses we carry a burden that we did not create.
He says our elders never separated land from sea or people from their place of Vanua.
Rabuka says the Vanua is one living whole and what wounds one part, wounds all of it.
He says when the tide reaches our homes, when the reef our grandmothers knew grows pale, when a village must pack up and move to higher ground, that is not a statistic, it is a family, it is a sacred trust being broken.
The Prime Minister is asking the leaders who come to our shores to see, and listen with an open heart to those of us on the front line and to come ready to accelerate and deliver the effort needed to keep our promise, to honour our shared moral and legal obligation to limit global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
He says every fraction of a degree of human-driven warming moves us beyond the balance set by God's creation and inflicts further harm on homes and villages and livelihoods.
Rabuka is asking world leaders and Ministers to come with the courage to face down the forest-filled addictions and greed that continues to fuel this crisis, for we cannot, in good faith, allow it to unfold and grow any further.
Rabuka says Fiji and Pacific leaders will be clear over the coming days that in addition to addressing the core drivers of the climate crisis, action must be taken to tackle the impacts we already face.
He says leaders and Pacific negotiators alike will deliver a clear message on the need for finance to reach the communities who need it, not someday, but now, as an act of justice, not charity.
Ministers, leaders and negotiators from more that 50 countries are convening in Nadi from today until Friday for Pre-COP31 to discuss key issues and their agenda for COP31.
The Pacific Pre-COP31 discussions will focus on four key pillars including keeping 1.5°C within reach, enhancing access to climate finance, elevating the ocean-climate nexus, and amplifying Pacific voices and leadership.
