Climate Issues, Top Meet Agenda
Mr Blinken also held virtual bilateral meetings with other Pacific leaders including Fijian Ministers and Civil Society.
Monday 14 February 2022 | 14:46
Acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum with government representatives during the bilateral meeting with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his entourage at the Sofitel Resort & Spa in Nadi on February 12, 2022. Photo: Leon Lord
Acting Prime Minister and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum made the comment during the visit of the U.S Secretary of State Antony Bliken on Saturday.
He also highlighted the significance of Mr Blinken’s presence in Fiji in terms of climate finance.
“Most certainly we welcome the U.S. coming back into the Paris Agreement fold, and for us that’s critically important,” he said.
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“We talked about finance equates to development finance – and the ability to get some of the larger countries to be able to participate in the Paris Agreement,” he said.
“Their willingness to listen, understand, and indeed engage with Pacific Island countries is most welcome, as we welcome any other country that is very much in the same space as us in respect of addressing issues pertaining to climate change.”
Pacific region for the future
“This is a strategy for the long term because we see our long-term future in the Indo-Pacific. It’s as simple and basic as that,” Mr Blinken said.
“It’s much more fundamental than that. When we are looking at this region that we share, we see it as the region from the future, vital to our own prosperity, vital to our own progress,” he said.
He added that 60 per cent of the global GDP was here in the region, including Fiji.
“Fifty per cent of the world’s population is here. And for all the challenges that we have at the moment that we’re working on together, it’s also a source of tremendous opportunity. And that’s what the strategy that we put out is all about.
“It is about building a free and open Indo-Pacific, defending it with democratic institutions, with transparency, commitment to a rules-based order that we share.”
Resilience
Mr Blinken said it was also about resilience – coming together to end COVID-19, to deal with the climate crisis and to build back better from the economic crisis.
“It’s about connecting our countries together, deepening and stitching together different partnerships and alliances,” he said.
“It’s about building shared prosperity, new approaches to economic integration, some of which we talked about today, with high standards. Yes, it is about security, and we’re working through the strategy to deepen integrated deterrence across the region, the inter-interoperability of our forces.”
Mr Blinken also held virtual bilateral meetings with other Pacific leaders including Fijian Ministers and Civil Society.
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