The National Climate Change Country Team (NCCCT) will soon formulate a climate change policy for Fiji .
The Minister for Local Government, Urban Development, Housing and Environment, Col. Samuela Saumatua said the Climate Change Country Team would serve as the main platform to provide guidance and policy advice to Government on all matters relating to climate change.
“At the Cabinet meeting held on Tuesday, October 12, 2010, Cabinet approved the re-establishment of Fiji’s National Climate Change Country Team (NCCCT). Our country is very lucky because we have various organisations working with the Government and the community to address effects of climate change,” the minister said at the opening of Fiji’s first NCCCT meeting at Holiday Inn today.
Some of the NCCCT members include representatives from government ministries such as tourism, AGs office, meteorology, Prime Minister’s office, health and reps from non-governmental organisations such as SOPAC, Asian Development Bank, WWF and Pacific Conference of Churches.
Fiji signed and ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, and signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol to the Climate Change Convention in 1998.
The UNFCCC establishes our government’s commitment in taking on board climate change issues, while the Kyoto Protocol sets out actual targets for developed countries to reduce Greenhouse gases (GHG) within a set timeframe.
The NCCCT will be instrumental in identifying and putting together issues that is of national interest to be Fiji’s positions to international climate change meetings and conferences such as the Pacific Small Islands Developing States (PSIDS), Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and G77 & China and the Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting that is held every year.
The minister said that as a small island developing state (SIDS), Fiji fell into the category of countries that was most at risk from the impacts of climate change.
Climate change is a global phenomenon that is beginning to impact all aspects of society.
-End-