Second Public Consultations Announced for Climate Bill
The second round of public consultations on the revised draft of the national Climate Change Bill was announced by Attorney- General and Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum yesterday. He said since the last round of public consultations, held from September to December last year, the world was forced to confront a further shared trauma.
“While we have succeeded in keeping COVID out of Fiji since the early days of the crisis and have had no cases since May, we have suffered economic and societal disruption,” he said.
“That was the price we were forced to pay for keeping the disease out of the country. But the pandemic has allowed us to foresee what kinds of disruption might await us if climate change accelerates.
“Whether we must respond to a cyclone, or to loss of livelihood due to changing climatic patterns, or to a pandemic, we will have to increase our collective efforts and develop effective strategies to target and correct the factors and conditions that make us vulnerable.”
The revised draft of the Climate Change Bill is now available online and the public has been asked to have a look at it and make consultations.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said over the coming weeks, the public and a range of interest groups would be met directly while further feedback collected from online submissions, internal consultations, and small group consultations.
“It is the first piece of legislation globally to include provisions that recognise and set out a legal process for considering planned relocation of communities as a legitimate form of climate change adaptation,” he said.
“The bill sets out our intention to retain our sovereign right over our existing maritime boundaries irrespective of the future impacts of sea-level rise.
“More broadly, this is also the first piece of legislation drafted by a small island state that integrates provisions to support our ability to achieve our net-zero 2050 target.”