Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says speeches won’t save us and neither will nice tweets or photo-opportunities.
Speaking at the High-Level Virtual Roundtable on Climate Action convened by the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Bainimarama says the only expectation is action and we need solidarity we can feel, reductions in emissions we can measure and resources vulnerable nations can afford to access now.
He joined UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and the President of the EU Ursula von der Leyen, Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and the Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres in calling for far greater commitment to increasing global financing for climate action.
Five years post-Paris, the front of the climate emergency is expanding and its impacts are intensifying.
— Frank Bainimarama (@FijiPM) September 24, 2020
Our #DecadeOfAction did not start as we imagined, but it must finish as we planned, and press onwards to a net-zero future by 2050: The only #NewNormal worth fighting for. pic.twitter.com/FB36H5D24E
Bainimarama told this High-Level event on Climate Action that if they don’t win the race to net-zero emissions, they are headed for three or four degrees of global warming and create earth they will not recognise and a climate we cannot survive. He says billions of people now share the anxiety Fijians have known for a generation, as they find themselves one super-storm, mega-fire, or flash flood removed from catastrophe. Bainimarama says without urgent reform to climate finance, we will struggle to fund our very survival. He says Fiji intends to make climate-risk reporting mandatory across every Government Ministry.
