Funding Committed, Says Aust Official
AU$105million (F$163 million) will be given by the Green Climate Fund for various climate change projects in the region.
This was confirmed by Patrick Suckling, Australian Ambassador for Environment yesterday at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva
He said: “We worked very hard last year to have a series of meetings of the Green Climate Fund in the region and partly it is recognising the challenges this region faces with climate change.
“Around 10 per cent of the AU$1.5 billion (F$2.33b) has been agreed to be spent through the Green Climate Fund. “
He said this was one of the topics of discussions in a COP23 Planning Meeting that started yesterday in Suva.
“But more specifically, we are very interested in getting a sense of what are the Fijian Government’s priorities for this posting of COP23, because you can focus on so many different things and the Government’s having a look at all of that now. Whatever the priorities of Fiji are, the Fiji Government will always have the Australian Government ‘s support.
“The outcomes of the meeting will be about how we can co-operate more on climate change,” he said.
He says the Australian Government is very keen to talk to the Government of Fiji.
“We have been working together to continue to strengthen our co-operation on climate change and environment, having to work across the region to get as much support as possible for taking action against climate change.”
He said the purpose of his visit was to converse with the Government of Fiji and business community about how Australia and Fiji can strongly work together in co-operation to address the global challenge that everyone faces.
His visit was also to discuss the damaging impacts and threats of climate change Australia, Fiji and others in the Pacific have co-operated for many decades in relation to this challenge. “So there is a long history before me and a long history ahead of us together as well in terms of how we work to address the threats of climate change,” he said.
Edited by Maraia Vula
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