At COP29 we should not only deliver on substantive agenda items but give real hope to our communities and our people.
This was stressed by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Hon. Professor Biman Prasad at the opening of the Pacific Risk to Resilience Week at the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat in Suva on Monday [23.09.24].
While calling on all participants to be active and ambitious in their contributions this week, Hon. Professor Prasad also highlighted that the Pacific cannot afford to be incoherent or inefficient in the fight against the impacts of the climate crisis.
“This meeting is happening at a pivotal time and underlined this week is focused squarely on us, our needs and challenges and to ensure that our abilities, resources and capacities are enhanced to tackle the impacts of the climate crisis.,”
“We need to carefully evaluate existing and emerging opportunities for increasing our ability, resources, and capacity to tackle the impacts of the climate crisis including within the loss and damage framework.”
Professor Prasad added the establishment and operationalisation of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage and the roll-out of the Santiago network in quick succession over the last four years shows that we can influence change at the international level.
He also noted that the Pacific needs to also increase its pace and scale in its response to climate change.
This, he said, is an opportunity to advance efforts to better conceptualise and implement a comprehensive approach to climate and disaster risk management.
“We need to define the actions that will shape our delivery of the regional climate mobility framework. We need to better understand our loss and damage capacity building needs and communicate our priorities to the secretariat of the Santiago network for loss and damage.
“We need to better quantify our adaptation, mitigation and our loss and damage needs. We need to be clearer about how climate and nature financing can be brought close together.”
Recently, through the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MECC), has secured GPB 100,000 (approx. FJD 280,000) for climate change negotiations training and COP29 participation through the Climate Ambition Support Alliance (CASA) Opportunity Fund.
Through the CASA funding, five civil servants from Fiji and five Masters students (from Pacific countries) of the Institute of Climate Indigenous Knowledge at the Pacific Theological College will be trained in climate change negotiations.
The ten participants comprising of 50% women and at least 20% youth from Fiji and various Pacific countries will work closely with their Governments to build their capacity in preparation for 29th United Nations Climate Conference (COP29). The CASA funding also caters for travel of the ten participants to attend COP29.
COP 29 will take place from the 11th to the 22nd of November 2024 at Baku Staduim in the capital city of Azerbaijan.