Secretary-General

The Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum

Excellencies

 

            At the outset let me extend my appreciation for the opportunity to deliver this statement on the urgency to abate Climate Change – the single greatest threat to our Blue Pacific Continent that haunts our people and governments daily and the livelihoods of our people.

• For the Blue Pacific continent, many of our populations live on atolls and low-lying coastlines barely a few meters above sea level. As such climate change impacts present an existential threat to our very survival as peoples, communities, and nations.

• Regrettably, although the Paris Agreement and the Rulebook are in place, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, reaching record levels, with no signs of peaking any time soon - drawing attention to the need for Parties to raise their ambition.

• Excellency, the shared prosperity and security of our Blue Pacific can only safely exist if the international community take measures to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. If we do not, we will lose our homes, our ways of life, our wellbeing, and our livelihoods.

• As we know, just over a month from now world leaders will once again converge in Sharm El-Sheikh at COP27.

• Our call to all Parties is to ensure that COP27 delivers clear progress on turning pledges and commitments into action, consistent with the 1.5 degrees pathway.

• Indeed, this will require all world leaders, especially the big emitters, to urgently commit to net zero emissions by 2050, submit enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions, and deliver the 100 billion climate finance goal before COP27.

• Within our region, we the Leaders of the Blue Pacific continue to underscore the urgency to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees through rapid, deep and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

• In this respect, our Leaders declared that the Pacific is facing a Climate Emergency that threatens the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of our people and ecosystems, backed by the latest science and the daily lived realities in Pacific communities.

• Our Leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to fully implement the Paris Agreement, including for the first time committing to a collective aim to achieve carbon neutrality in the Pacific by 2050.

• As we approach COP27, we look forward to working together with Egypt as the COP 27 President Designate to ensure that COP 27 delivers an ambitious outcome that reflects the need to urgently scale-up ambition and implementation to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, enhances efforts by developed country Parties to at least double their collective provision of climate finance for adaptation, advances work on the ocean-climate nexus, and demonstrates meaningful progress with the deliberations on the new collective quantified climate finance goal, and the Glasgow Dialogue on funding arrangements for loss and damage.

• Excellency, in recognising the many impacts of climate change and disaster and their threat to the future of the region’s people and the statehood of many Pacific nations, we seek your support as we consider these complex issues in accordance with applicable principles and norms of international law and relevant international frameworks and standards.

• As we gather this week, we bring our call to the UN General Assembly for a resolution requesting the International Court of Justice to provide an advisory opinion on the obligations of states under international law to protect the rights of present and future generations against the adverse impacts of climate change, and to ensure limiting emissions to 1.5 degrees, including obligations of all major emitters past, present and future.

• This week our Pacific Ministers responsible for Disaster Management have had a week-long engagement in Brisbane, Australia at the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction to discuss ways to strengthen our region’s resilience against climate and disaster risks. Next week, our Pacific negotiators will be meeting in Samoa to discuss our strategy and priorities for COP27.

• Excellencies, we are not leaving any stones unturned with our preparations for COP27. We want our voice to be heard loud and clear at COP27. We have appointed six ministerial Political Climate Champions to advocate our priorities and we look to the global community to engage with our region and listen to our voice.

• Let me be clear on one thing. Our Leaders are not there just to make the numbers, but our mission is to raise the urgency for climate action now and meaningfully engage to influence a legacy COP27 outcome.

• As one Blue Pacific, we are – and will continue – to take decisive action. To secure the future of our Blue Pacific, the Leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum are pursuing regional solutions recognising that each of our nation’s futures, as well as the actions we choose to take, are interconnected.

• We have defined the collective future we want for our children through the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific. This collective vision has placed climate change at the centre of our development plans and together, we will take ownership of, and collectively respond to, pressing challenges ahead.

• Forum Leaders have also upped the ante with the 2021 Declaration on Preserving Maritime Zones in the face of Climate Change-related Sea-level rise – a strong and decisive step to secure our Blue Pacific home now and into perpetuity.

• On sustainable financing, our Leaders have established the Pacific Resilience Facility – a Pacific designed and led fund to build the resilience of our communities in the face of climate change and disasters. We need resources to capitalise this facility.

• In closing, what we need is all world leaders to act. The Paris Agreement is not a political tool – it’s a roadmap for our very survival. All parties must recommit to their obligation and ensure they ramp up ambition to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

• COP27 must be a COP of action and implementation. To all world leaders, now is the time.

• Act for our children and grandchildren
• Act for our islands
• Act for our oceans
• Act for our Blue Pacific, and
• Our for our Blue Planet that we all share and call home.

 

I thank you.