Growth in the Pacific
Mobilising climate finance
THE climate crisis is the gravest threat; the gravest challenge to the security; to the well being and to the stability of Pacific societies and economies.
We live the climate crisis across the Pacific daily – from the highlands of PNG to the flatlands of the Federated States of Micronesia as the climate change super charged El Nino unfolds with ferocity unseen in decades.
We feel the impacts of climate change on our rapidly deteriorating infrastructure – at our jetties; in our schools and across our roads. We feel climate change in the runaway increases in cost of food and other essential items that are driven by floods, droughts and grave uncertainty in weather patterns across the world.
Our mums and dads meet this bitter reality of runaway price increases fuelled by climate change every day when they purchase bread and food in shops and markets across the Pacific. We feel the impacts of climate change on our social infrastructure – in growing crime, in gender violence and in our communities.
More recently in Fiji we have seen on our local television news that many parts of experienced floods just last weekend. The impact of these will be immediate. By the end of the week, prices of essential food will have increased further across our markets.
The Pacific makes no special claim to be the only region to be impacted by the climate crisis in intense ways. That was most certainly true several decades ago. But the Pacific is still unique in many ways.
No country outside the Blue Pacific Peace Zone is considering the whole scale migration of its people as a result of climate change – none.
No country outside the Pacific is exploring legal options to maintain state continuity to prepare for an eventuality, when their lands are lost to sea level rise. None.
No country outside of SIDS has faced 30-100 percent loss to their GDP following a single extreme weather event.
So when we ask that the World focus its attention on the Pacific, we do so with a sense of urgency; given our deep understanding of the scale of impending catastrophe in a way that will not be felt by no other region as intensely as it is felt by any other region; and with a growing sense of frustration, if not anger.
When we Pacific islanders talk about vulnerability, we want to convey to the World that this is of an existential nature.
Our use of the term “vulnerability” is not to convey any average threat arising from climate change – it conveys the combination of vulnerabilities that now threaten the very existence and stability of our societies.
The Pacific must adapt. This is the development imperative of our time. This is our survival imperative.
Globally, 1 in 10 of climate disasters in small states involve the destruction of more than 30 percent of GDP. No OECD country has faced such a scale of economic loss from a single climate event - none.
This is the most basic of fact that IFI’s, GCF and all our development partners persistently fail to understand. Outside of World War 2, none of our development partners have had to face 50 percent losses to their GDP.
Vanuatu has faced this twice within this decade. This is why we say, small island states make a special and a unique case for climate and for development financing. Unique in this sense, does mean uniqueness in relation to small island states in a precise way.
I have just returned from Vanua Levu. Together with H. E. Ewen McDonald – the High Commissioner of Australia to Fiji, we marked the end of rebuilding of 9 schools that were destroyed in Cyclone Yasa in 2020 – four years ago. Fiji is, as always, very grateful to Australia for this support. Rebuilding and recovery takes time – years and sometimes even decades.
Other Honorable Ministers of Finance in the Pacific will not hesitate to tell you that much humanitarian and recovery efforts are funded through our national budgets. This is done by redeploying funds.
As my fellow Ministers from the region will also tell you, redeployment always involves taking resources away from other development priorities - always. And nothing gives – we still have to maintain our education services; we still have to maintain our health services.
Similarly, our Pacific Governors of Reserve Banks will tell you – we still have to service our debts. So to the IMF, we support and welcome the debt pause initiative.
For a debt servicing pause to be small state sensitive; this should be for a period of 5 years following any major climate catastrophe – at the minimum.
Constraints in climate financing
Getting financing right is crucial to stability and securing the development prospects of the Pacific island states.
From 2003-2019, climate financing accessed by SIDS collectively amounted to a meagre $1.7 billion. All Pacific Pacific Island States have had negative experiences in accessing climate funds.
Our development partners tell us that this is because we face capacity constraints.
We tell our development partners that this is because of the rigorous and complex requirements they have constructed to access these funds.
Some of us even go further to say that the procedures are deliberately complicated in order to restrain small island states from accessing scarce climate funds.
Internationally, this is a crucial year for climate finance. The World needs to agree to a new collective quantified financial goal at COP29.
Fiji has said before and it bears repeating — we believe that this should be in the order of $750 billion – up from the present $100 billion.
Fiji has also said that given our unique vulnerabilities; 10 percent of the global climate finances should be locked into special purpose windows for small island states.
Access to climate funds matters. Equally, the speed of access to finance matters. The pre-positioning of finance matters.
The IMF Deputy MD, Dr Li and I visited several places in Fiji over the weekend. I know that he shares my assessment of the urgency of the climate crisis.
Climate finance should flow speedily to Governments. From Government’s, climate finance should flow speedily and directly to communities and stakeholders on the frontlines. Governments cannot sit on these funds.
PROF BIMAN PRASAD is the leader of the National Federation Party and Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Strategic Planning, National Development and Statistics. The views expressed in this article are his and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.
CONTINUES TOMORROW