Climate Change tops Agenda as Nawadra Heads SPREP
As the date for the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference draws closer, world leaders grapple with how best to tackle the climate crisis.
And Fiji, leads the way for vulnerable small island states against the more developed countries.
In fact, Fiji has come a long way trying to convince other world leaders to keep to their promises on reducing their carbon footprints.
Their actions and non-actions continue to impact the very survival of vulnerable countries, especially those in the Pacific.
For Fiji, the recent appointment of Sefania Nawadra to lead the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), as director-general will help amplify the collective voice of Pacific people.
Mr Nawadra is the first Fijian in the role.
APPOINTMENT
Mr Nawadra has been involved in environment-related work since he started his career in Government.
“It is an important time to be leading the environment organisation for the Pacific because we face the challenges of climate change, waste management, and also the loss of biodiversity,” Mr Nawadra said.
“These are the three main issues that the world faces right now. It has implications for everything, including the economy and the livelihoods of our communities.”
The Tailevu native was able to do his work from Samoa, where he had been living with his family for the past 11 years.
“It’s really important for us as regional organisations to help our member governments to not only advocate well at the international level with negotiations and consultations that are held but to also help with the action in countries at the national and also community levels.”
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
His term runs up to six years. His Masters in environment-related engineering from the University of London has steered the way for him to the top job.
Mr Nawadra, who is no stranger to be at the helm of operations, believes people must cooperate to save the environment from the climate crisis.
The 55-year-old headed the Pacific Sub-regional Office of the United Nations Environment Programme before taking up his current post.
Prior to this, he was the Director of the Environmental Monitoring and Governance programme for SPREP.
“We can’t do it alone. We need to strengthen our partnerships with communities, with organisations, faith-based organisations, and also
with the many member governments themselves. To help them do what needs to be done.”
Mr Nawadra’s work overlooks 21 SPREP-member countries in the Pacific, including Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Wallis and Futuna.
Mr Nawadra’s advice to young people is to listen to their elders and have faith in the work they do.
HISTORICAL EVENTS: PREP FOR COP27
This week, two Pacific Island states opened its diplomatic mission in Fiji – with both making a statement on finding solutions to its shared problem – climate crisis.
The governments of the Cook Islands and Samoa have decided to focus some of its diplomatic engagement from Fiji.
Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama officiated at the two openings and emphasised one issue – climate change.
“Most of our citizens live within shouting distance of the shoreline. They are threatened by the same storms and the same rising seas for their sake. We must speak with one voice and work with one resolve,” Mr Bainimarama said.
“It was the one feature that guarantees our security, a world that gets below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming.”
Mr Bainimarama said that having their office in Fiji shows how serious the two countries are about building a friendship with Fiji and ramping up its regional engagement. He also said Fiji was the Pacific hub of trade, travel, telecommunications, and finance, and Suva is the one-stop-shop for all matters multilateral.
CLIMATE FINANCING – A VITAL TOOL
Two weeks ago, Minister for Rural and Maritime Development and Disaster Management, Inia Seruiratu, highlighted that the critical importance for ambitious change in the approach to disaster risk financing was needed more than ever.
He made this comment during a Ministerial Roundtable focused on ‘Thinking Resilience: Changing the Approach to Disaster Risk Reduction Finance’ at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Bali, Indonesia.
“A lot of discussions recently have been centered on the significant barriers of accessing international finance, particularly for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) like Fiji. The availability of disaster and climate finance is finite, and that finance available for SIDS often lacks flexibility and isn’t proportionate to the vulnerability of its people to disasters and risks,” he said.
Mr Seruiratu highlighted that Fiji had learnt that by adopting a programmatic approach, financing disaster risk reduction would be placed at the core of the development agenda on a long-term basis.
Given the tight fiscal space coupled with the urgency to address disaster risks, Mr Seruiratu said Fiji had developed and prioritised 122 action items in its National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy (NDRRP), aimed at enhancing resilience of communities and saving the Government millions of dollars.
This work is guarded by the Climate Change Act where anticipating and managing the impacts of disaster and climate change is everyone’s business.
These three historical events took place in the last two months and many other policies and affairs have been achieved.
All these will prepare Fiji for COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November this year.