Participants attending a workshop on climate change have been urged to focus on ways to address the increasing costs as a result of climate change.
This was relayed by the Minister for Works, Transport and Public Utilities Timoci Natuva at the opening of the National Platform for Disaster Risk management and Climate Change workshop held at Novotel in Lami this morning.
“With this revelation we have challenge on our hand and a lot of work to do. We must promote inclusive and integrated approach within government sectors also outside,” Mr Natuva said.
“We must improve our networking at all levels and we must align ourselves to the aspirations of Government that are drawn and aligned to our regional and international mandates,” he added.
For the past 30 years, Fiji amongst all Pacific Island countries topped the highest cost of damages and losses from disasters amounting to more than $1.2billion.
Mr Natuva highlighted that the theme “Reducing Disaster Risk and Climate Change Vulnerability through resilient development” provides the challenge for participants to discuss and recommendations for the next four days.
“Sustainable development cannot be achieved if disaster risk and climate change issues are not addressed appropriately,” Mr Natuva said.
European Union ambassador to the Pacific Andrew Jacobs commended Government for it’s initiatives towards the Green Growth Framework.
“We need to address prevention measures towards climate change because it is not costly. Preparedness plans ensure how well we can address climate change at national and community level,” Mr Jacobs said.
“The European Union has allocated funding of $3.4million to assist in efforts of mitigating climate change and have given state of the art equipment’s for trekking and analyzing climate change patterns in the country,” he added.
Mr Jacobs said the funding will be handled by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community through the ACP EU resilience towards climate change program.
Meanwhile, representing the women’s organizations, Adi Finanu Tabakaucoro commended Government’s efforts in organizing such workshops to address climate change disaster risk management.
“Women are always the ones affected especially during disasters and we are thankful that women are part of this workshop as it helps us understand disasters and how can mitigate adverse climate change effects,” Ms Tabakaucoro said.
During the four day workshop participants from the various divisions have been encouraged to share ideas to address climate change at all levels.
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