Archbishop Dr Peter Loy Chong;
Reverend Charissa Suli;
church leaders;
leaders of our Hindu and Muslim communities;
our young people;
distinguished guests;
brothers and sisters in faith,
Bula vinaka and Good Afternoon.
A little while ago, the davui called us together. In Fiji, that sound has long been a summons: stop what you are doing, come together, something matters.
Tomorrow, the Pre-COP opens here in Nadi, and world leaders will travel on to Tuvalu. There will be ministers and negotiators, texts to consider and targets to articulate. But before any of that begins, we have chosen to gather like this, as people of faith. Not out of habit, but out of conviction that climate change is not only a scientific problem, or an economic one. It is a moral one.
The theme of Jubilee has been with us this afternoon. In the book of Leviticus, every fiftieth year the land is allowed to rest, debts are forgiven, and what was lost is restored. It is a radical idea. It says the earth is not ours to exhaust. It says no one should carry a burden forever. And it says there comes a time to set things right.
Brothers and sisters, the Pacific is waiting for a Jubilee. We carry a burden we did not create. Our elders never separated land from sea, or people from place. The Vanua is one living whole, and what wounds onepart wounds all of it. So, 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, this is not a statistic. It is family. It is a sacred trust being broken.
That is why our service includes lament: an honest grief that refuses to pretend all is well. But our faith never leaves us at lament. Scripture calls us to tend and keep the garden, and to love our neighbour. The traditions in this room use different words, but we share one conviction: creation is a gift, entrusted to us, and we will answer for how we care for it.
And here is the moral heart of it. We know. The science has spoken, and our own eyes have seen. Once we know, doing nothing is no longer neutral. It is a choice, and it is a choice with a human face.
So, this week, I ask the leaders who come to our shores to do three things. We ask them to, come, see, and listen with an open heart to those on the front line. We ask them 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. 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, villages, and livelihoods. We ask them to come with the courage to face down the fossil fuel addictions and greed that continue to fuel this crisis, for we cannot in good faith allow it to unfold and grow any further.
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. To that end, 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.
United, Pacific Leaders have called for an Ocean of Peace. Peace is more than the absence of conflict. It is peace with one another, and peace with the creation that sustains us. That is the reality we pray for.
So let us pray for our visitors: for wisdom, humility and courage. And let us go from here not with fear, but with hope, and with work to do.
Vina’a Va’alevu. May God bless Fiji, the Pacific, and all who call this ocean home.