Fiji is again at the fore of the world stage as the fight against Climate Change intensifies.

Fiji has signed an Intergovernmental Declaration on Children, Youth and Climate Action with UNICEF at COP25 in Spain – making it among one of the first nations to do so.

This new declaration sees nations commit to accelerating inclusive child-responsive climate action as part of their nationally determined contributions.

Included in this are measures to enhance youth participation in decision-making.

Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says this new signing is a continuation of the work that Fiji started sometime back.

“Climate Change is a topic, is a challenge and indeed now many say is a crisis, that is really not just about the now but also about the future and the future of course is about our young people.”

He says youth play an important role and it’s important to have their voices heard.

“Just sort of further, provide more focus on what we’re already doing. As you know in a number of other areas we have signed to international commitments and conventions because we’re already doing it in any case, so it’s not like there’ll be a sudden shift because we’ve already made the shift and the shift is already there. But it also, sometimes countries like Fiji are used by other countries to demonstrate to the world what can be done.”

UNICEF’s Regional Chief of Communications in Africa, James Elder has also called for the need to continue having more young people in decision making.

“We have seen some good news in disaster risk reduction. Part of it comes from Fiji, as Fiji is one of the handful of countries that has just signed on to making sure that more than 50 percent of its entire work on climate has a voice of children.”

COP 25 continues in Madrid this week, ending on Friday.