Act to Be Implemented for Climate Change: A-G
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the Climate Change Act would enshrine, in law, our domestic response to the climate threat and the threat to our oceans.
Government intends to implement an Act over the coming months to better prepare us for the challenges we face from climate change. This was stated by the Attorney-General and Minister responsible for Climate Change, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, during his Ministerial statement in Parliament yesterday.
He said the Climate Change Act would enshrine, in law, our domestic response to the climate threat and the threat to our oceans.
He added that the Act would be comprehensive, holistic and easily understood.
It will:
■ provide a framework to guide Fiji’s implementation of the Paris Agreement;
■ co-ordinate our national response to climate change and ocean health;
■ give us the legal tools to carry out our most important job of safeguarding the Fijian people and their communities from the climate threat now and into the future.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said work was underway on this legislation for the past six months and they would soon embark on an appropriate period of public consultation on the draft bill, with further input from international experts to ensure it met the standard of world’s best practice.
He said Fiji was one of the small number of countries in the world to produce such a bill and right from the start of this process, “we have been determined to make it the best”.
The Bill would be introduced in Parliament in the September session before the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Summit, with the intention of being enacted into law before COP25 in Chile in December this year.
“The Fijian Government seeks cross-party support and indeed national support for this new legislation in the Parliament, along with the support of every Fijian,” he said.
“Because on any fair appraisal, it is responsible, it is balanced and it is necessary. In the interest of demonstrating Fiji’s resolve and persuading other nations to enact similar laws, for climate change.
“We must speak with one voice and support the Climate Act.”