Nauru will convene a leaders SDG17 roundtable when the country hosts the 49th Pacific Island Forum Leaders meeting in September.
Nauru President and Chair of the Pacific Small Island Developing States, Baron Waqa said the intention is to provide Pacific SIDS with a high level political platform to share with new and traditional partners their specific needs for taking climate action.
President Waqa made the comments at the 2nd Climate Action Pacific Partnership meeting in Suva, Fiji on Thursday.
Speaking to more than 200 delegates from the Pacific and around the world, Waqa highlighted some of the challenges faced by PSIDS.
“All that we lack are some of the necessary resources, affordable finance, technology transfer and domestic capacity building. I expect that the discussions over the next two days will place us all in a better position to access the means of implementation made newly available by our partners to implement our contributions.”
“My officials have been reaching out to your climate focal points to gather information on your priority projects so that our partners can come prepared to respond,” he said.
President Waqa has joined other Pacific leaders as well as representatives from the region’s business, civil society, science and the global investment community to discuss how to strengthen the Pacific’s resilience to the impacts of climate change and further reduce its already low carbon emissions.
President Waqa also took the opportunity to reiterate a call for the appointment of a Special Representative of the UN Secretary General to begin working on these issues.
“While there is good reason for optimism that the world is starting to act on ambition we should never forget that our climate risk continues to grow by the day. The special rep is intended to ensure that the UN system has the knowledge and capacity to avert crisis when possible and to respond effectively when crisis is unavoidable,” he said.
The outcomes of this CAPP Conference, will help guide the global political leaders’ Talanoa Dialogue at COP24, which will be co-chaired by Fiji and Poland.
The Pacific Small Island Developing States membership includes Fiji, PNG, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Nauru, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands.
Photo Loop Nauru. Caption: Nauru President and Chair of the Pacific Small Island Developing States, Baron Waqa addressing delegates at CAPP in Suva, Fiji