I lose patience with leaders who proclaim deep concern over climate change and then do little or nothing - PM

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has stressed that he loses patience with national leaders who proclaim their deep concern over climate change and then do little or nothing to lead their nations on a more ambitious path to reducing greenhouse‑gas emissions.

While speaking at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York, Bainimarama says that Fiji is coming to the end of its Presidency of COP23 on the UN ongoing climate negotiations amongst the nations of the world, but the struggle to fight global warming and to end the degradation of our oceans will continue to be Fiji’s highest priority.

Bainimarama says that the many disastrous effects of climate change that we are seeing in the South Pacific or around the world are well‑documented and the same can be said of the enormous stresses on our oceans arising from acidification, overfishing, warming and plastic refuse but the time to debate those facts is long past.

The Prime Minister says that Fiji has begun a project to improve access to sustainable water supply and sewerage services to approximately 270,000 Fijians.

He says that government will also provide cyclone insurance coverage for low‑income households.

Bainimarama says that they are relocating entire villages and communities to escape the rising seas together with rebuilding infrastructure back from cyclones to a higher, far more resilient standard.

He says that they are also working to protect communities that face unacceptably high risks of flooding.

Bainimarama says that Fiji became the first emerging market to issue a sovereign green bond to fund such activities adding that Fiji will be a net‑zero greenhouse gas emission country by 2050.

The Prime Minister says that the World has never needed the United Nations more and the existential problem of climate change requires us to work together.

Bainimarama says Fiji is firmly committed to the United Nations, and they need the United Nations to be at its best if they are to have any chance of overcoming the grave challenges that Fiji and the world now confront.