YouSaid · the spoken record

Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama

lines on the record: 135
first: 2014-09-24
most recent: 2022-09-24
sittings or episodes: 8
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“On behalf of every family that is watching us from home and praying for our success, we are unrelenting in this fight for its future. We are determined to provide it with opportunities to do well for itself and its families. We are determined to create new jobs in nature, in technology, in sustainable tourism and in our blue and green economies. Today we ask the world to join us. This is not the time for war. This is not the time for words. This is a time for will and a time for courage. Fiji is ready to make the coming years count for our people and for the planet. Our question is this: Are Member States with us? They should not say yes unless they plan to show it.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Ahead of Glasgow, I told leaders not to bother packing their bags if they did not come with serious carbon-slashing commitments. I have a new ask before they arrive in Sharm El-Sheikh. They should come only if they plan to arrive true to their climate financing commitments. They should come to Sharm El-Sheikh only if they are ready to agree to a loss-and-damage mechanism, in addition to a post-2025 financing framework. That must be in the order of $750 billion, with at least 10 per cent of climate financing destined for small island States. That is our story a Fijian story in every sense. It is the story of David against Goliath — a small State facing nations, corporations and interests far bigger than we are.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“We are therefore left with little to no choice. We legislated a net-zero commitment by 2050 through the Climate Change Act 2021, which will make us more energy secure, protect us from energy price shocks beyond our control and provide us with cleaner air, better health and better jobs. Yet, despite the clear benefits, the imperative before us and all the talk that we hear of saving the planet, the world’s collective commitments remain trifling. They simply will not keep us at well below the 2°C target, let alone 1.5°C. I again urge developed nations to deliver on the $100 billion climate financing commitment at the twenty-seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Egypt this year. That is now three years overdue.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“I challenge leaders from the high-emitting nations to name a greater global injustice than the price that young Pacific islanders are paying for climate change. Since 2014, Fiji has rebuilt or repaired more than 200 schools devasted by cyclones. We built cement and nature-based seawalls to keep out the rising seas. We stabilized vast stretches of riverbank. Where seawalls cannot suffice, we have already relocated six communities, with over 40 more in the queue to be moved. We are building back better to the standards demanded by a warmer world. We are borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars to do that. The archaic architecture of multilateral development banks and global financial services gives us little to no access to grants or concessional climate financing, particularly for adaptation.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“If we do not halve carbon emissions by that critical year, the crisis of our warming planet will imperil every gain that we and every nation have made. If we fail to secure 1.5°C, we will crush any hope of improving our citizens’ quality of life. We were given glimpses of that doomsday proposition worldwide in the floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, dying coral and melting glaciers. We in Fiji felt that devastation in the 14 cyclones that have struck us since 2014. Those storms stole lives. They levelled homes. They destroyed schools. They traumatized our young people. The Pacific’s children are among the least to blame for the climate crisis, yet our children are the most affected.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“The pace of our recovery is possible because we prepared for it. We kept our national airline, Fiji Airways, ready to resume full operations throughout the COVID-19 crisis. We supported our tourism industry to weather the storm. That allowed us to set the terms of our reopening. With our steady recovery, we are now paying out tens of millions of dollars to help the most vulnerable Fijian families to meet the global rising cost of food, fuel and other essentials. Our eight-year-old democracy has delivered the equality that our people cherish. It has delivered the services and infrastructure on which they depend. It has certainly also shown its resilience. Our eyes are now on the next eight years — the sprint from now until 2030, which will be the most defining period ever for our people’s and planet’s future.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Through decisive policy choices, we maintained the strongest possible focus on protecting people and communities. Although our tourism revenue was zero, we paid out income support to the unemployed. We did not slash a cent of our pensions and payments to elderly and disabled Fijians. In total, we paid out half a billion dollars in social assistance — the equivalent of 10 per cent of the value of our gross domestic product. With our partners’ support, we achieved near-universal vaccination of our adult population. We reopened Fiji’s borders from this past December, and we have since welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors and earned hundreds of millions in revenue. More of our people are working again, and we are set towards record-breaking double-digit economic growth for the Fijian economy this year.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“For the first time in our history, primary and secondary education are free — not free in name, but free in fact and accessible to all. Textbooks are free. Whether they travel by road, river or ocean, disadvantaged students’ transportation to schools is subsidized. We have extended opportunities for tertiary education beyond what was ever thought imaginable. And today Fijian women outnumber men in our universities. In times of crisis, our constitutional commitments to every Fijian have served us best and mattered most. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic contracted our economy by over 20 per cent. It stole half of our Government revenues, flung over 100,000 Fijians out of full-time employment and pushed us to the precipice of a socioeconomic crisis.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Thousands of Fijian households have gained access to electric power for the first time — propelling electricity access in the country to upwards of 96 per cent. We have replaced or outright built dozens of bridges and crossings and lit up the country with thousands of new streetlights. We have built, upgraded or rehabilitated close to 1,000 kilometres of roads. Poverty is falling, incomes are rising. The cost of data has fallen by as much as 98 per cent. Ninety-five per cent of the Fijian population have mobile phone connectivity. And a national digital television platform, Walesi, reaches all 110 populated islands in Fiji. We achieved the longest stretch of economic growth in Fijian history. Among those wins for sustainable development, the Fijian education revolution is my greatest pride as Prime Minister.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“The strong and accountable institutions it established and the protections it upholds produced an electoral system in which every Fijian vote holds equal value. And the Fijian people have used that vote to elect my Government twice in the past eight years. In our service, we have worked to advance the civil, political and socioeconomic constitutional rights of every Fijian — from the protection of indigenous land ownership to the right to clean water and adequate sanitation, the right to a clean and healthy environment and the right to education, among many more. Since 2014, we have built or replaced hundreds of kilometres of water pipelines and improved access to clean water to over 80 per cent of all Fijians.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“She walked over to me from her greeting post to say that she had asked the then- Prince Charles to look after their other guests so that she could personally welcome me and Fiji back into the Commonwealth. It was a simple gesture, but a special affirmation of all that we had worked to achieve for Fiji’s new and true democracy. For we had done away with an undemocratic system that relegated hundreds of thousands of Fijians to the margins of society by design. We had adopted a new Constitution that echoed the spirit of the promise of the Charter of the United Nations to uphold equal rights for all peoples regardless of background, religion, ethnicity, gender, age or physical ability or provenance. It guaranteed common and equal Fijian identity and citizenship for all citizens.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Surely, as leaders, we have the capacity to defend peace on all those fronts. I ask — where is the world’s courage to do so? I see that courage in the Fijian people I serve as we build up our country, undaunted by those challenges. Today I will share their story — not for the sake of pride, but because leaders should know the lives, progress and aspirations they threaten through their inaction. I arrived this week from the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, a leader who holds a special place in Fijian history and in the hearts of the Fijian people, as well as in my heart. My fondest memory of Her Majesty is from London, four years ago, at a welcome reception she hosted at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“And I appeal to him — give diplomacy a chance to bring this war to a speedy close. We also condemn another war — the climate war — that humankind is waging on itself, its ecosystems and its oceans. This war is not fought with bullets and bombs, but apathy, denial and the lack of courage to do what we all know must be done. This is a war we are losing in every community, city and country of every size. But small States, those least responsible, stand to lose the most of all. Yet we are not being heard — not even, it seems, by the leadership of multilateral development banks. Lastly, I condemn the cold war of indifference against the citizens of small islands and States who bear the brunt of this superstorm of global shocks — from rising commodity prices to the climate crisis and the pandemic.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Good morning to one and all. First, I congratulate Mr. Csaba Korosi on his election as the President of the General Assembly at its seventy- seventh session. I also commend his predecessor, Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid of the Maldives. In a challenging year, I am here to condemn not one but three great global conflicts. The first is Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine — a scourge that reflects a brutal mentality of conquest and empire. No matter their might or size, Fiji is unafraid to condemn any warring nation. We owe nothing less to the Fijian peacekeepers who have sacrificed and paid the ultimate price for the sake of peace around the world. We in the Pacific, who have lived the horror of nuclear fallout, wholly denounce Mr. Putin’s threatened use of nuclear weapons.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“While they may stand emptier-than-usual today, the halls of the UNGA are where our global responses to COVID-19, climate change, and other defining causes of our time must take form — they are where our collective future will be forged. This great institution must remain the beating heart of global dignity, global security and global order. While there are changes we know must be made; Fijians still look to the UN as a beacon for hope, a force for peace and an anchor of stability. Fiji stands ready to serve our community of nations in every way we can, by way of peacekeeping, by way of our climate and oceans diplomacy, and by example, through the nation we build for ourselves. Thank you.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“Mr President, 2020 was meant to be the year we took back our planet; a superyear for nature, for the oceans, for the climate, for biodiversity, for food security, for the survival of all life on Earth. But caught on our heels by this pandemic, every nation has fallen well short of their global commitments. Our recovery from COVID-19 is our last and best opportunity to set ourselves towards the future our children deserve. We know that neither this global pandemic nor the climate emergency can be solved in the communities suffering the most from their devastation. The campaign for collective action must press ahead in parliaments, in board rooms, in stock exchanges and in the hearts and minds of ordinary citizens everywhere in the world; that work begins here, it begins with the United Nations.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“There is so much more we can do — that we must do — to break the costly cycle of rebuilding from climate driven devastation and maintain the pace of our march towards a modern economy. To fund our full recovery, developing countries have asked for a mere ten per cent of the historic stimulus packages the richest nations have deployed for themselves. If we do not bridge this gap; the economic wounds of this pandemic will fester and cracks of inequity will deepen, undermining hard-earned development gains and bringing economic catastrophe crashing down on the most vulnerable nations. All countries will be forced to reckon with the historic cost of that collapse.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“- We have relocated five entire communities vulnerable to the rising seas, with over 40 more identified for relocation; - We are expanding our marine protected areas and protecting new coral reef systems, while maintaining our moratorium on sea-bed mining for the decade; - We are committed to net-zero emissions in shipping throughout the Pacific by 2050; - We are building adaptive capacity by expanding access to information and technology to all our people, including in our most remote islands. Today, 95% of Fijians can access mobile broadband services. We are creating j obs through the construction of cyclone-resilient infrastructure, extending roads and essential services to the most remote pockets of our islands. And where climate impacts have left trails of devastation, we are building back stronger.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“In fact, we are still expanding the life-changing benefits of renewable power to more of our people; adding to the over 800 Fijian communities already powered by solar home systems. - Alongside our development partners we are putting forward innovative solutions, including a new agro-solar project on our island of Ovalau, allowing the same land to be used for growing food and generating power; - We’re making higher education more accessible; with women composing a greater share of graduates from our tertiary institutions than their male peers; - In under two years we have planted 2.3 million trees and mangroves as part of our commitment to grow 30 million trees in 15 years. And we soon plan to monetize the carbon captured by Fiji’s forests in partnership with the World Bank.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“Since then, we have launched another national budget which puts all resources we can muster behind as balanced, sustainable and inclusive a recovery as possible: - We have allocated tens of millions of dollars in direct assistance to those left unemployed or who are working on reduced hours as a result of this pandemic; - Education has remained free for every primary and secondary student in Fiji; - Healthcare in Government facilities has remained free for every Fijian; - We have maintained our social protection for over 100,000 of our most vulnerable citizens, including the elderly, persons living with disabilities, rural pregnant mothers, and children from single-parent or destitute homes in need of care and protection; - No Fijian has been cut-off from water because they cannot afford their bills.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“President, Fiji has worked closely with the UN and our partners in Canada, Jamaica, the UK, the EU, and Rwanda through high-level engagement on financing for development to explore how we all recover faster. Recover better. Recover bluer. Recover greener. And recover together. In the face of crushing financial pressure, Fiji has kept its sights set on the SDGs in every way we can afford. When our borders first shut, we immediately re prioritized finances through a COVID-19 Response Budget.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“If global climate action mirrors our incoherent global response to this pandemic, our children will see far greater horrors — we will not cap global temperature rise at either the 1.5-degree or 2-degree target, we will not stop our ocean ecosystems from becoming inhospitable, and we will not prevent a sixth mass extinction event. Billions or even trillions of dollars thrown at scientist’s feet decades on from now will not produce a silver bullet that saves us from unmitigated climate impacts. That strategy may suffice for COVID-19, but solving a challenge as complex as climate change demands daily and enduring commitment that is already overdue. Our recovery from this pandemic must mark a transition to a decarbonized, climate- resilient economic system. That is why Mr.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“If climate change was not making that clear, this pandemic has made it painfully evident. While we trust that science will defeat COVID-19, just as it has defeated smallpox, polio, and other communicable diseases, our changing climate will define the “next normal” post-COVID-19, becoming far deadlier before it ever abates. We are already seeing a version of environmental Armageddon — from the massive, unprecedented fires in the American West, in Australia, and even in Scandinavia above the Arctic Circle which have devastated communities and infrastructure, turned iconic skylines orange, and scorched millions of acres of land. Just last week, Greenland lost a piece of its ice shelf that is larger than a number of small island nations.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“Once again, our fate rests in the collective hands of the world — yet we still have zero guarantee of equitable access to a viable vaccine. Indeed, the divide between the highly-developed and developing worlds has never felt so stark. But once again, the UN Charter supplies us hope, as has the ferocious advocacy and leadership from my friend, the Secretary-General. 75 years ago, the UN’s founding leaders recognised that no nation could know peace, no matter how responsibly and resolutely they act, unless all nations, large and small, did their part. The truth of that founding purpose is timeless — but it is clear that the multilateral system which emerged served the different needs of a different age. Mr President, this is not 1945. Our community of nations is larger, and so are the challenges we face.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“Yet despite a catastrophic blow to Government revenues, we are committed to rebuilding from Cyclone Harold and building resilience to future storms and the rising seas. We must continue charting our path towards net-zero emissions and the aims of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. These are not choices, Mr President, they are matters of survival. But the development resources available to us are unaffordable and far too little in relation to the scale of our immense and pressing needs. Climate change and the coronavirus may be very different beasts, but the inequities they have exposed are all-too-familiar for small developing states. Once again, the worst impacts have fallen on us; those least equipped to bear them.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“We have diligently managed travel through our border ever since, and the Fijian public has now been free of the coronavirus for over 150 days. Our doctors, our nurses, our contact tracers, our lab technicians and the members of our disciplined forces have fought tooth-and-nail for every day of that unbroken streak. And as I speak, they work in our quarantine centres, isolation wards, and at our border to allow our people to continue living without the virus in their midst. But while Fiji has contained the coronavirus, we have not been spared its economic devastation. Our vital tourism sector, which constitutes upwards of 40 percent of our overall economy, along with other key sectors like our Garment Industry, came to a halt overnight, thrusting our economy into the most severe economic crisis in history.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“Our disaster authorities and health officials sprang into action, taking every step in-line with everything the experts could tell us about how to stop the spread of this highly contagious virus. And we saved lives from Harold’s devastation, even evacuating entire communities, all without allowing a single new case in relation to the storm. This was a turning point for Fiji — we knew that if we could overcome the virus in the harshest of conditions, it could be defeated. So we doubled down on our containment efforts, maintaining fast and early testing through our local WHO- certified laboratory. We either isolated or quarantined every close contact of every known case. We maintained a nationwide curfew and a complete lockdown of our two most populous cities.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“President of the 75th Session; Secretary-General; Excellencies; Bula Vinaka from Fiji, Your Excellency, the President of the 75th General Assembly, Mr Bozkir, and congratulations on your election. Fiji joined the United Nations in 1970, just three days after our Independence. But even as we mark Fiji’s 50th Birthday alongside the United Nation’s 75th Anniversary, any celebration feels hollow against the enormity of COVID-19’s global spread and the worsening impacts of the climate emergency. If there was ever a perfect storm of these dual crises, Fiji has seen it. This past April, in the midst of our campaign to contain an outbreak of the coronavirus, category 4 Cyclone Harold — already the third storm we had seen that season — made landfall at our shores.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“But all of that progress remains at risk if the world does not heed the voices of our young and summon the collective will to confront the climate threat. It is our duty, as the leaders of our own generation, to secure the future of our planet and our only home — for them and for the generations to come. We must lay out a vision of the great opportunities that await the world when we embrace a sustainable energy future and a sustainable future for all living things.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“We are ensuring that those living in rural and maritime areas enjoy the same access to services as those in our towns and cities, providing incentives for investment and creating a record number of jobs. We are harnessing the might of multilateralism through deeper partnerships with — and leadership within — financial institutions and development organizations. Fiji’s willingness to give time and energy to answering critical global calls to action, whether in peacekeeping, addressing climate change or preserving our oceans, has earned us unprecedented respect. The reason these achievements have ultimately been possible is because my Government has united the country, empowered our people and given them a sense of purpose. They will not permit those who would seek to divide us and take Fiji backwards to ever succeed.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“We are providing free education for the first time so that no Fijian child is left behind, ending the heartbreak of parents unable to send their children to school. We are providing more access to higher education with scholarships and tertiary loans, training tradespeople and building national capacity in our network of technical colleges. We are providing better access to health care, plus free medicine for low-income earners, and entering into public-private partnerships to improve our hospitals. We have raised social wages and extended maternity leave, family care leave and paternity leave. We have improved our standards of governance and accountability, fighting corruption and prudently managing the nation’s finances.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“It is ground-breaking and something other countries can emulate — state-of- the-art nationally determined contribution enhancement, guided by a long-term vision and backed by force of law that reinforces Fiji as a global leader in the climate fight. All of these measures are part of a holistic response to secure the future of every Fijian. However dire the climate threat may be, our people can rely on my Government to do everything we possibly can to protect them, especially in times of crisis. For 13 years, empowering our people has been the hallmark of my Government. We have done so, first and foremost, by levelling the playing field so that every Fijian enjoys equal opportunity in our new democracy.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“Fiji is also becoming one of the first countries to enshrine our implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and other strands of our climate campaign in a new national law. The Climate Change Act gives us the legal tool we need to place climate action and ambition at the centre of national life. When it is enacted by our Parliament within the next few months, the decisions of the Government and the private sector will have to factor in climate change and other laws will be amended to fall into line with the Act. The draft legislation is now online for public feedback on the Fijian Government’s website.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“We are raising money ourselves in Fiji for the Fund through an environmental levy, but this effort needs to be scaled up. For me, personally, one of our most exciting initiatives is to preserve and plant more of our forests and mangroves and to monetize these through carbon-trading arrangements in the international marketplace. In addition to reducing our own carbon footprint as an important component of our revised nationally determined contribution, we want to fire the imaginations of our people and encourage them to protect our trees, our mangroves and our coral, too. This is because they will not only have natural value, but will be worth serious dollars and cents.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“The first of these projects — on Vio Island — will be the start of a programme that we hope can be replicated throughout the Pacific. We are working to secure our infrastructure from extreme weather events, such as by putting power lines underground and raising roads along our shores that are already threatened by the rising seas. We started building back better after Cyclone Winston and we will continue to build back better so that homes, schools and public infrastructure are more resilient. We are relocating threatened communities to move them out of harm’s way. Our Climate Relocation and Displaced People’s Trust Fund is operational and we are seeking global support to assist our displaced people and to move the infrastructure they rely on, such as schools, health centres, roads, bridges and public utilities.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“We are working to reduce the emissions of our transport sector on land through electric buses and higher fuel standards and, at sea, working with our Pacific neighbours to convert our shipping fleets from diesel to hybrid and make them more efficient. We are working to protect our vulnerable coastline and our coastal communities and towns from rising waters and extreme weather events, including our global gateway, Nadi. We are working to ensure that when disaster strikes — as Cyclone Winston did three years ago, costing us one-third of our gross domestic product in 36 hours — we have access to appropriately packaged insurance to bounce back. We are working to access adequate and affordable finance from public and private sources for climate adaptation. We are bringing solar power to communities that are off the national grid.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“We have done it proudly because we see it as our duty to serve. With the assistance of our development partner, Australia, we are establishing a new training centre in Fiji for our peacekeeping activities and to provide a rapid response to climate-induced disasters in our region. Fiji will continue contributing to United Nations peacekeeping with better trained and equipped troops. While conflict zones in particular feel the stress of climate impacts, our peacekeepers will be even better prepared to assist affected communities. In the climate fight, we have launched a host of initiatives to serve our people, the region and the world.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“They amount to only 0.04 per cent of total global emissions, but we will be submitting our revised nationally determined contribution next year, which will include a commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. For leadership is about leading by example, not lecturing others or expecting them to shoulder the burden alone. COP 23 was not the first time that Fiji demonstrated leadership in the world. For four decades, we have served the world through our contribution to United Nations peacekeeping. Our troops have travelled across the globe to some of the most violent trouble spots and placed their lives on the line to protect the innocent. More than 60 Fijians have paid the ultimate sacrifice — it has been a sacrifice not only for their loved ones, but for our nation of fewer than a million people.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“We assumed the presidency of COP 23 not for prestige, but to play our part in ensuring their survival and everything we hold dear, not only our precious surroundings, but our culture and traditions, in order protect the dreams and aspirations that every Fijian has for him or herself and the hopes they all have for their children. Small as it is, Fiji will fight. We will continue to be a voice for more climate ambition and further climate action. We will continue to advance our case in the great forums of the world, on behalf not only of Fijians and other Pacific islanders, but of the climate-vulnerable everywhere. This week, Fiji answered the call of the Secretary-General to come to New York with increased ambition to reduce our own emissions.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“And there is no alternative but to rapidly phase out the use of coal. No more coal mines. No more coal-powered electricity. Unless we stop burning coal, we have no hope of achieving net zero emissions in 31 years’ time. We must put oceans at the heart of the process of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at the twenty-fifth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 25), or Blue COP, in Chile in December, because we cannot have a stable climate without a healthy ocean. My message to my own people, and especially young Fijians, is that I hear them and that their nation and Government are doing everything they can to get the world to confront the climate threat.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“Defeat is not an option, so I would again ask those who did not come to New York this week with fresh plans to tackle the climate crisis or who came merely out of curiosity to observe to please examine the evidence and the facts and, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, face up to their responsibility to lead. To stave off catastrophe, there is no alternative but to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. There is no alternative but to cap the average global temperature at 1.5°C above the pre-industrial age — and preferably even lower — because even at 1°C warming entire species are being made extinct and our coral reefs are dying. There is no alternative but to rapidly scale down the use of fossil fuels and rapidly scale up the development of renewable energy.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“For all 193 States Members of the United Nations, this is our moment of truth — the defining issue that will determine the course of history. Previous generations fought each other to uphold their own interests, but now the world must unite around our common interests to fight a more powerful enemy — a monster we created ourselves, a heating planet staggering under the excesses of all who have taken its resilience for granted. Every nation has a role to play, but only the industrial nations have the economic capacity and advanced technical know-how to lead the world to victory in this struggle.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“I would tell anyone living in denial of the climate emergency, some of whom sit at the apex of certain Governments the following, that if they readily listen to scientists and take heed of the best research available in every other field of human endeavour, they should not refuse to listen to scientists of climate change. One of our youngest climate warriors — Timoci Naulusala — makes the case far better than I ever could. He watched his village ripped to pieces in Cyclone Winston, and he is now demanding that the world act to spare other young people the same suffering he personally endured. If we fail to act, Timoci’s worst fears will be realized, as we will condemn him and all young people to a hellish future.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“This is a rise of 10 centimetres over previous IPCC projections because of the larger ice loss now happening in Antarctica. That is heart-breaking news for tens of thousands of Fijians in our coastal areas and all people in low-lying areas around the world. It adds considerable urgency to the mission of Fiji’s Climate Relocation and Displaced Peoples Trust Fund for Communities and Infrastructure, which I launched Monday night here in New York. I urge everyone to read the report. It is from the top minds in their scientific fields.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“Of all the contributions made and words spoken at the United Nations this week, some of the most thought-provoking, and certainly the most passionate, have come from our young people, inspiring and, sometimes, goading us, as national leaders, to use our power and influence, look beyond our narrow political objectives and think more broadly about the world that they will inherit. A few hours ago, the world’s leading climate scientists, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), issued a report that adds a new dimension of horror to the world that our children and grandchildren will inherit. They warn that global warming is turning our seas into a huge potential threat to humankind, reporting that global average sea levels could rise by up to 1.1 metres by 2100, in the worst-case warming scenario.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“We have witnessed inspiring calls to action this week at the United Nations in pursuit of a more vibrant and resilient world, but with few exceptions those contributions have not come from leaders. They have come from young people who are tired of watching helplessly as their future is hijacked by nations too blind to the catastrophe at our doorstep or too impotent to do what must be done; young people who are living in terror at what the coming years will bring, but who are choosing to speak out rather than cower in fear; young people who know that a secure and prosperous future remains within reach, only if we, as leaders, choose to act and act now to save them.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“We need the United Nations to be at its best if we are to have any chance of overcoming the grave challenges that Fiji and the world now confront.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)
“I want to draw the world’s serious attention to the need to help developing nations, particularly the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, to overcome climate and oceans stresses. We need access to finance and practical solutions, and we need the United Nations to help us get there. It has been an honour for Fiji, and for me personally, to lead the United Nations efforts on climate change this year. I am proud of what we have accomplished. The world has never needed the United Nations more. The existential problem of climate change requires us to work together, the challenge of mobilizing finance for climate resilience requires us to work together, and more complex and more globalized conflicts require us to work together. Fiji is firmly committed to the United Nations.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)
“The Talanoa Dialogue will reach a crescendo in Katowice, Poland, at COP-24. We cannot let Katowice fail. Katowice must not became another Copenhagen. We are not only calling on others to act, we are also leading from the front. Earlier this week I announced that Fiji will commit to significantly raising its nationally determined contribution. Fiji will be a net- zero greenhouse-gas-emission country by 2050. Fiji is proud to have launched the Ocean Pathway Partnership with the Government of Sweden. We know that the interaction of ocean ecology and climate change runs deep. We cannot attempt to solve the crisis of one without confronting the crisis of the other. Our oceans are suffering from the stress of human activities, which goes beyond climate change and includes pollution, overfishing and acidification.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)
“I am confident that I speak for all Fijians and Pacific islanders when I say that I tend to lose patience with national leaders who proclaim their deep concern over climate change and then do little or nothing to lead their nations onto a more ambitious path for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Leaders who ignore that threat and give their people new coal-fired power plants instead of a better future for their children are either tragically short-sighted or simply engaging in a most cynical form of betrayal. And their people — all people — will bear the burden. The world has embraced the Pacific tradition of talanoa, a tradition of open and honest dialogue. That will help to raise our collective ambition. But ambition without action and without a plan is just talk.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)