Fiji’s first ever National Summit on Climate Change kicks off in less than two hours in the Labasa.

Director Protocol and Treaties, Esala Nayasi says the summit is an important stepping stone in Fiji’s efforts to create awareness on climate change as well as address its adverse effects.

“The summit has a broad goal and that is to strengthen resilience by developing a forum for information and knowledge sharing as a means of addressing the gaps so that is the reason why we’re calling a meeting of all the experts and those who’re actually implementers of policies that government has put in place.”

Nayasi adds, the summit is a build-up to the 18th Session of the Conference of the Parties meeting in Doha, Qatar at the end of the year under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“We hope to use this meeting too as a strategic tool for us to come together to come up with ways in which we could be effectively represented at the upcoming meeting in Doha.”

Nayasi says that not only is it important for Fiji to be represented at international level, but that work is being done nationally to ensure every Fijian is well versed with the effects of climate change and how to address it.

The National Climate Change Summit ends tomorrow.