PM Rabuka puts five-year test to world leaders

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka asked world leaders in Nadi on Tuesday night whether Tuvalu will get the support it needs in five years’ time.

Mr Rabuka said this was a question Fijian communities such as Nabavatu in Dreketi, Macuata are also living with.

“We must ask, in five years’ time, has Tuvalu received the support needed to expand the coastal protection efforts that they have begun?” he said.

Mr Rabuka asked leaders at the Sheraton Fiji Golf & Beach Resort in Denarau, Nadi to see Tuvalu “as the proxy for evaluating our efforts”.

Back home, Nabavatu villagers displaced by Tropical Cyclone Ana were expected to move into permanent homes by October. This is Fiji’s first state-led climate relocation project, Minister for Environment and Climate Change Lynda Tabuya said in May.

Last year, Fiji’s Special Advisor on Climate Action Daniel Lund said up to 676 communities may have to move as sea levels rise and rainfall and landslides worsen.

Fiji pays for such moves through the Climate Relocation of Communities Trust Fund. The Government treats relocation as a last resort.

In August, Mr Rabuka said it would be “a sad thing” if world leaders skipped Pre-COP31 because he wanted them to see the effects first-hand.

On Tuesday, leaders including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Mr Kurum visited Tuvalu. Mr Rabuka said the Pacific wants to be seen differently.

“We aim to... move beyond being seen as a region where only the problem is measured to the place where solutions are shared,” he said.

“We can be bold because science is on our side.”