FIJI is pressing for faster climate finance and adaptation support as sea-level rise, flooding and shifting rainfall are already damaging livelihoods across the island nation.
Minister for Information, Environment and Climate Change, Lynda Tabuya, said the region faced environmental damage and a test of justice.
“The Pacific is not just on the front line of the climate crisis; we are also the front line in the effort to shape and define climate justice.”
Her remarks tied climate impacts to everyday losses. Communities in places such as Nabavatu Village (in the Dreketi District of the Macuata Province on Vanua Levu) and Cogea Village (in the district of Wainunu, in Bua Province on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s northern island) were cited as examples of relocation pressures.
“While farmers are confronting changing rainfall patterns, increased temperatures, and reduced crop yields, coastal and river communities are seeing erosion and flooding undermine land that has been occupied for generations.”
Fisherfolk, Tabuya said, returned with empty nets and their livelihoods suffered as a result.
Fiji is trying to convert those risks into a policy response. The country has joined 138 other nations in submitting a third Nationally Determined Contribution to the UN climate system, and she added they are developing a costed implementation plan and an investment plan to turn broad commitments into specific projects.
Tabuya said Fiji’s climate targets now carried a legal framework under the Climate Change Act, signalling a shift from pledges to execution.
Fiji has committed to sustainably managing all of its ocean spaces and designating 30 per cent as marine protected areas by 2030.
She also linked national planning to broader regional efforts, including marine spatial planning, a national ocean accounting system and a blue economy framework.
“We know we cannot do this alone. Partnerships remain critical to the mobilisation of resources and the delivery of our climate objectives.”
