PM tells UN talks of climate emergency
AS Fiji marks its 50th Birthday alongside the United Nation’s 75th Anniversary, any celebration feels hollow against the enormity of COVID-19’s global spread and the worsening impacts of the climate emergency.
This was Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama’s message as he virtually delivered his national address on the margins of the United Nations Assembly Debate 2020 at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly last week.
Prime Minister Bainimarama said if there was ever a perfect storm of these dual crises, Fiji has seen it. He told the UNGA that in April this year, in the midst of the campaign to contain an outbreak of the coronavirus, Category 4 Cyclone Harold, already the third storm Fiji had weather during the season, made landfall at our shores.
“Our disaster authorities and health officials sprang into action, taking every step in-line with everything the experts could tell us about how to stop the spread of this highly contagious virus. And we saved lives from Harold’s devastation, even evacuating entire communities, all without allowing a single new case in relation to the storm.”
“This was a turning point for Fiji –– we knew that if we could overcome the virus in the harshest of conditions, it could be defeated. So we doubled down on our containment efforts, maintaining fast and early testing through our local WHO-certified laboratory. We either isolated or quarantined every close contact of every known case.”
Prime Minister Bainimarama adds Fiji maintained a nationwide curfew and a complete lockdown of its two most populous cities. “We have diligently managed travel through our border ever since, and the Fijian public has now been free of the coronavirus for over 150 days.”
“But while Fiji has contained the coronavirus, we have not been spared its economic devastation. Our vital tourism sector, which constitutes upwards of 40 per cent of our overall economy, along with other key sectors like our garment industry, came to a halt overnight, thrusting our economy into the most severe economic crisis in history.”
Despite a catastrophic blow to Government revenues, Prime Minister Bainimarama adds Fiji is committed to rebuilding from Cyclone Harold and building resilience to future storms and the rising seas. He maintained that the world must continue charting its path towards net-zero emissions and the aims of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.
These are not choices, they are matters of survival. But the development resources available to us are unaffordable and far too little in relation to the scale of our immense and pressing needs.”
“Climate change and the coronavirus may be very different beasts, but the inequities they have exposed are all-too-familiar for small developing states. Once again, the worst impacts have fallen on us; those least-equipped to bear them. Once again, our fate rests in the collective hands of the world yet we still have zero guarantee of equitable access to a viable vaccine.”