DUST collects on the floor of the village shop. The door is locked, the windows shut tight and a collection of guttering, plastic pipes, nuts bolts, screws and nails are piled on the counter and the shelves. Outside the shop, grass has overgrown the cement culverts and drains which arrived over two years ago and are too heavy for the villagers to lift without the necessary machinery or lay without engineering expertise.
This is Vunidogoloa Village in Cakaudrove, the poster child for Fiji’s climate change relocation initiative. Last month Fiji’s military strongmanturned climate change champion, Commodore Frank Bainimarama told the United Nations his nation would issue a US$50 million “green” bond in coming weeks to help combat the effects of global climate change, the first developing country to do so.
Lauded by economists and climate change advocates, this financial ingenuity is expected to take the global green bond market to an estimated US$134.9million this year. According to a summary released by Fiji and the World Bank, Fiji’s bonds will be available in five- and 13-year maturities from November 1and pay coupons of four per cent and 6.3 per cent.
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