The existential threat climate change poses to our Blue Pacific is very concerning as the seasonal patterns our ancestors lived by are shifting rapidly, with more change ahead.
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka highlighted this while opening the Pacific Regional and National Security Conference at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.
Rabuka says here in the Pacific, the difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 or 3 degrees is not subtle but is a knife’s edge.
He says it is the difference between the habitability of our island homes and forced migration.
He adds it is also the difference between catching your own fish, and growing your family’s food, or being wholly dependent on imported protein, and the difference between economic sovereignty, and fully fledged dependence on external aid and disaster relief.
Rabuka says the only way through is to work together, as this Conference demonstrates.
He says for Fiji, as our capacity allows, we will continue to deploy humanitarian and disaster relief to our neighbours, including for bushfires, severe tropical cyclones, earthquakes and tsunamis.
The Prime Minister has reaffirmed to all the country representatives present at the conference that Fiji will continue to stand by them.
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