Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama

The third Climate Action Pacific Partnership conference has enabled a collective recognition that the deadly impacts of climate change have intensified.

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama while addressing the delegates at the closing of the two-day event this evening says it has intensified into a full-blown crisis.

The like of which humanity has never before seen as it’s a climate crisis, an ocean crisis and the defining crisis of our time.

Bainimarama says if we don’t take action, this crisis will soon escalate into a chaos that will consume the entire world.

The response from the collective community of nations has hardly kept pace with this rapidly worsening reality. Almost no nation and this is particularly true for the major economies have NDCs that are aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement. As I said last week in Melbourne, it often takes open recognition of a crisis in order to bring the truth of a situation to light. It takes a crisis to spur action on a global scale. In this case, this climate crisis is one of humankind’s making, and humankind is equally responsible and capable of its unmaking. How? By adhering to the very theme of this meeting: by decarbonizing and building resilience, and by doing it now.

The Prime Minister says responding to this crisis requires commitments from countries, companies, citizens and financial institutions alike.

He says the CAPP conference has allowed detailed discussions on our regions unique challenges to implement our own nationally determined contributions.

We have heard from Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Germany about how they are looking to assist us in implementing these commitments through our innovative Regional NCD Hub. Of course, we welcome that assistance. But we need something more. We need our development partners and private investors to work with those of us strengthening our NDCs in time for the UNSG Summit in September, and certainly before the Paris Agreement starts next year.

The Prime Minister says they will present the global call for action that’s emerged from the CAPP event to UN Secretary-General António Guterres after the Pacific Islands Forum session tomorrow.

Bainimarama has made it clear this is not a message for one person but it’s for every nation on this earth.

He adds everyone must understand what we’re up against and every nation must take action in response.

Meanwhile, the Cook Islands will host next year’s CAPP conference.