Pacific Leaders to Target Climate Realities at World Summit: Envoy

Aleading Pacific diplomat based in New York says focus and solidarity will be key to outcomes for regional leaders heading to the United Nations annual leaders meeting this month.

Palau’s Olai Uludong says the Climate Week focus and Summit this year at the 2019 United Nations General Assembly is adding to an already sizeable list of global agenda items for Pacific officials.

She says Pacific missions in New York are already hard at work sorting where their leaders will be, who they will meet and key messages representing their national and regional positions on the agenda items.

The seasoned diplomat and highlevel climate change negotiator says the focus on securing resource partnerships are a key part of the workload for her President, Tommy Remengesau, during Climate Week in the big apple.

“This is where we have to rise above our own vulnerabilities to ensure the Climate Summit is a race that we can win,” she says.

At the United Nations climate change conference in Paris in 2015, Palau committed itself to hit a 45 per cent renewable energy target by 2025.

“The problem we are facing now is ‘how’-- that’s the challenge facing all the leaders.,” says Uludong, “We have all these targets but how do we get there? What is needed to achieve the goals we’ve set, and who can we partner with? With UN Secretary-General Guterres visiting the Pacific ahead of the Kainaki II Declaration from Tuvalu’s Forum Leaders meeting, “we have to make sure we come to New York prepared”.

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