Growth in the Pacific
The Pacific region’s reality with climate change
WE need to crush the time it takes for resources to become available to Pacific Governments. The two to three year time it takes from design to implementation of climate programs is plainly wrong.
Given the scale of the suffering across our region, I would venture to say that this is also fundamentally immoral.
Concurrently, I will say to ourselves as leaders of finance in the Pacific, Government lethargy and the business-as-usual approach by our Government departments will not cut it. We all have to scale up our response capabilities.
Communities also need to adapt. Whenever adaptation is delayed, adaptation becomes more costly at best, or the chances of successful adaption become impossible at worst.
The Pacific is on a war footing where climate change impacts are concerned. The multilateral institutions of climate finance and bureaucracy involved in its deployment, must be acutely aware of this.
Making climate finance work Today SIDS have woefully insufficient resources to address climate adaptation.
Less than two per cent of the global climate finance flowed to SIDS in 2020. The scarce funds that did flow, faced considerable delays in translating into programs. There is a perception that adaptation programs in small island states carry a higher investment risk. We have to de-risk climate investments in order to speed up implementation and attract private finance.
In the assessment of the viability of projects, MDB’s and development partners use two tests — namely ‘replicability at scale’ and ‘benefits at scale’. Pacific states find it difficult to pass either of these. We should simply dump these tests now, as they only serve to punish Pacific states.
Framing solutions
I now turn to offer some considerations for the way forward. Firstly, we now need SIDS-specific special financing windows across all climate funds. This window should require reduced requirements.
This is a crucial starting point for the most climate vulnerable region in the world.
The World Bank and ADB have granted some access to concessional financing by taking into regard our unique vulnerabilities. I welcome these. I urge that these unique vulnerabilities be mainframed in making decisions about concessional and climate funds.
I join our Pacific leaders in calling for a speedy operationalisation of the Loss and Damage Fund. The Global North needs to increase its contribution to this Fund.
This will be a crucial tool for our region.
To those who are on the board of the Loss and Damage Fund, my message is, please do not repeat the mistakes made when framing the Green Climate Fund (GCF).
The Pacific has paid a huge price for the failures of the GCF. The small states of the Pacific cannot continue to be punished twice – punished by your carbon excesses; and then punished by the constraints that you impose on accessing climate finance.
Further, I call on our development partners to broaden the space for Pacific islanders to shape and lead their climate change response.
Listen to Pacific islanders. This should not be hard. Climate projects must always be locally led; they must be locally designed and locally implemented.
The climate crisis must not be allowed to end up in climate colonialism — that is — drowning our small states deeper into debts taken to fund recovery from climate disasters and conceding a part of our sovereignty to those who control our climate debts.
We have to work together to attract private sector investments. The private sector is a crucial part of the solution.
There is no reason why the Pacific’s multibillion dollar tourism industry cannot become a part of the Pacific’s renewable energy story. The Pacific’s tourism sector can lead the world in a transition to a net zero tourism industry.
There is no reason why the Pacific’s multibillion dollar tuna industry cannot lead the Pacific’s green shipping transition. The financial resources and agility of the private sector has to be an important part of our climate response.
The Pacific region is however encouraged by some of the recent developments on disaster risk financing. The disaster contingent financing like the CAT-DDO offered by the World Bank and the Stand-by Loan from Japan are important tools. We welcome this.
Fiji adopted its first National Climate Finance Strategy last year. This gives us a blueprint for prioritising climate investments and the seeking of climate funds externally. It is an important part of our toolkit.
We are also exploring parametric insurance to provide quick liquidity and social protection in the event of climate change induced disasters. It can be a useful tool for building our resilience across the region.
We also have to prioritise funding for the relocation of communities that are at risk due to climate change. There is an already established dedicated trust fund for funding climate-induced relocations.
The region has agreed to the establishment of the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF) and we expect that this will be fully funded soon. We are making progress. We are determined.
Pacific Regional Solidarity Finance ministers and Pacific’s leaders often feel isolated on the world stage.
On the global stage, we compete with large developing countries to be heard.
The Pacific’s regional solidarity has never been more essential than it is today. We need to harness our solidarity wisely.
That is why it is so heartening to see so many of our dear Pacific leaders and friends here. Fiji is deeply committed to doing all it can to strengthen our solidarity, and project our voice globally as a united region.
On our solidarity rests our shared vision of a Pacific region that is united in purpose to secure climate justice for our peoples; to return the world to a pathway of 1.5 Celsius temperature increase – the temperature increase limit where we still have a fighting chance, and to secure the Blue Pacific as an ocean of peace.
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.