What the world achieved
The fight of small states to secure themselves a future
AS world leaders were taking their seats at the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, authorities in the Bahamas were still accounting for their dead in the horrific aftermath of Hurricane Dorian.
Small states kept this tragedy front and centre at UNGA74 and wove a powerful narrative throughout the week’s discussions that placed their interests and perspective at the heart of global consciousness.
Small states arrived in New York as some of the few nations ready and willing to answer the call from the millions of people — across 150 countries — who took to the streets the week prior to demand bolder climate action.
Their sentiments were best summarised in a warning carried on a sign by a teenager in Louisville, Kentucky: “You’ll die of old age, I will die of climate change”.
That appeal was reinforced by hundreds of young leaders from across the globe who went to New York to remind the world that the fight against climate change was a fight for their very future.
In a truly historic gathering that included at least a half-dozen Fijian climate warriors, young people’s impassioned appeals helped make the weekend’s Youth Climate Action Summit a viral social media sensation.
In fact, for the first time ever, Google searches for “climate change” finally surpassed those for “Game of Thrones”.
Against this backdrop, a handful of leaders were chosen to speak at the UN secretary-general’s Climate Action Summit on Monday before the opening of UNGA74.
Fijian Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama, joined the prime ministers of Jamaica, Costa Rica, France, Germany and others in stressing the deadly reality of soaring global temperatures and contrasting it with the vibrant potential of climate-resilient economies.
At that summit, nations representing billions of people and corporations worth trillions of dollars took their seats at the same decision-making table.
Never before had the UN played host to a meeting of such scale on an issue so critical.
And in that mix of political and corporate clout, our PM gave the world a gut-check, giving voice to the suffering of Fijians and all climate vulnerable people as a direct result of selfish actions of the industrialised world. The best news to emerge from the summit was the UN secretary-general’s announcement that the number of nations planning to toughen up their climate action plans grew from 23 to 70.
A welcome boost, but still well short of where the world needs to be to stave off climate catastrophe.
The world achieved several other key victories: The Green Climate Fund received a surge of new financial pledges, a group of financial institutions and insurance companies committed to ending their investments in carbon-emitting industries by mid-century, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation a new commitment to helping smallscale farmers adapt to climate impacts.
Thirty countries — including Germany — 22 regional states and 21 companies vowed to end the burning of coal.
The largest emitters, however, failed to announce decisive emissions cuts. Without these pledges in place, the progress of small states remains perilous — a reality that Fiji drove home repeatedly in our meetings and interventions throughout the week.
It has been six years since the 195 countries of the UN endorsed the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
With just over a decade to go until the 2030 deadline, Fiji and other small states were faced with a shrinking window of opportunity to address the vulnerabilities responsible for the uneven progress in meeting our sustainable development goals (SDGs).
At the high-level meeting on Universal Healthcare, Mr Bainimarama rightly pointed out: the climate crisis is a health crisis.
Across the globe, rising seas and severe storms demand more resilient solutions in delivering reliable medical services.
Fiji immediately elevated its position of thought-leadership, speaking to the complexity of an issue plaguing all climate vulnerable nations and building a platform for the collective concerns presented by small states later in the week at a high-level meeting on sustainable development.
For Pacific Island countries, our embrace of the 2030 Agenda has been weakened by persistent gaps in financing and challenges presented by our small size, our geography and our vulnerability to climate-induced disasters.
As the chair of Pacific Small Island Developing States, Fiji led the call for a more accessible mix of public and private-sector financing to meet our SDGs, making the case that we cannot advance our SDGs without improving our climate resilience.
Fiji then laid out specific, scalable financing solutions at Summit on Finance for Development.
Pacific leaders recognised that public finance alone cannot build resilient economies. We need the private sector to see the investment potential in adaptation, and we need their expertise and innovation to build a world where our progress in meeting the SDGs is not under constant threat from catastrophic climatic events.
The interest from our corporate and development partners was palpable, and future financial products supporting adaptation will undoubtedly trace their origins to Fiji’s pragmatic advocacy.
Fiji’s work to weave small-state perspectives into all the key summits of the assembly culminated in the Samoa (SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action) Pathway event at the end of the week.
Mr Bainimarama stood alongside some heavy hitters — including “Aquaman” star Jason Momoa — in forcefully articulating the way forward for sustainable development in small states.
As we mark the close of what was a remarkable year for Fiji at the UN, with Mr Bainimarama as the only world leader who spoke at all five summits, we must not forget that, at the time of this writing, hundreds of Bahamian people still remain missing.
Tragically, we can expect similar stories of climate-provoked suffering to take centre stage in global deliberations for years to come.
But a new story will be told as well –– a story of change and progress driven by a new coalition of countries squarely focused on the big picture of human progress and sustainable development.
Within that coalition, from the grassroots level to the height of global leadership, Fijians are leading from the front through our actions and activism.
Mr Bainimarama put it best: “When the community of nations finally steps up and succeeds in solving some of the great challenges of our time, the credit will be owed — in no small way — to the passionate leadership of #TeamFiji”.
It was a privilege to serve in the Fijian delegation at the 74th sessions of the UNGA.
We’re living in a moment history will never forget. By design, the frameworks of international diplomacy are slow-moving. But small states are running a smart and disciplined diplomatic ground-game that is turning the gears of global governance in our favour.
Owed to the leadership of Mr Bainimarama, I hold great faith that the coming generations will look back on our work with patriotism and pride – knowing we fought hard for their future in the face of some of the great challenges of our time.