PM: Climate inaction ‘a choice with a human face’

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has put world leaders on notice as Pre-COP31 opens in Nadi today: knowing the human cost of climate change and failing to act is a choice.

Mr Rabuka urged leaders to come, see and listen to Pacific communities living on the front line of the climate crisis.

"Once we know, doing nothing is no longer neutral. It is a choice with a human face," Mr Rabuka said.

He spoke on Sunday at the Ecumenical and Interfaith Sunday Service in Nadi, the first event of the Pre-COP31 programme, hosted by the Pacific Conference of Churches.

Church leaders, Hindu and Muslim leaders, young people and delegates attended.

Mr Rabuka said climate change was "not only a scientific problem, or an economic one, it is a moral one".

World leaders travel to Tuvalu today, while ministers and negotiators meet in Nadi this week.

"We ask them to come, we ask them to see, and we ask them to listen with an open heart to those of us on the front line," Mr Rabuka said.

He said the Pacific carried "a burden that we did not create".

On climate finance, Mr Rabuka said Fiji and Pacific leaders would push for money to reach affected communities.

"Not someday, but now, as an act of justice not charity," he said.

He also asked leaders to keep the promise to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Head of the Catholic Church in Fiji, Archbishop Peter Loy Chong, backed the Prime Minister's call for justice.

He told how the Rewa River flooded and swallowed his family home when he was a boy.

Archbishop Chong said Fijians were vulnerable "not only to climate change but to environmental exploitation", including those who extract gravel and sand.

"This is our Tagi, this is our cry and we want you to listen to this cry," he said.