It was a call for ambitious climate action.

COP23 President and Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama opening the Climate Action Pacific Partnership meeting in Suva this morning with a clear message that only by working together as a region, can we confront our greatest collective threat that is climate change.

With more than 300 delegates in attendance ncluding leaders from the Pacific Island Countries, the Prime Minister stressed the urgency of the situation and need for a consensus to face the climate adversities ahead.

The Prime Minister highlighted the current projections indicate that we could face a 50% probability of much more than three degrees of warming over the next century.

To allow this to happen, Bainimarama says would spell the end of our life as we know it.

The COP23 President stressed that to achieve the goal to keep warming within 1.5 degrees, we need to ask more of Governments in other parts of the world.

He adds we also have to ask more of ourselves as Pacific Islanders.

Bainimarama says one concrete step will be to get the major countries of the world to step up their game and revise their Nationally Determined Contributions – NDCs in line with the Paris Agreement.

Bainimarama says that we need to be more ambitious understates the situation. The fact is, our NDCs need to be aggressive enough to yield results – and get us back on track to the 1.5 degree target.

The two day high level meeting will end tomorrow with discussions to also include innovative climate financing and climate insurance.