2022 Speech - Fiji
| Session Number | 77 |
|---|---|
| Year | 2022 |
| Country | Fiji |
| Country Code | FJI |
| Speech |
Good morning to one and all. First, I congratulate Mr. Csaba Korosi on his election as the President of the General Assembly at its seventy- seventh session. I also commend his predecessor, Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid of the Maldives.
In a challenging year, I am here to condemn not one but three great global conflicts. The first is Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine — a scourge that reflects a brutal mentality of conquest and empire. No matter their might or size, Fiji is unafraid to condemn any warring nation. We owe nothing less to the Fijian peacekeepers who have sacrificed and paid the ultimate price for the sake of peace around the world. We in the Pacific, who have lived the horror of nuclear fallout, wholly denounce Mr. Putin’s threatened use of nuclear weapons. And I appeal to him — give diplomacy a chance to bring this war to a speedy close. We also condemn another war — the climate war — that humankind is waging on itself, its ecosystems and its oceans. This war is not fought with bullets and bombs, but apathy, denial and the lack of courage to do what we all know must be done. This is a war we are losing in every community, city and country of every size. But small States, those least responsible, stand to lose the most of all. Yet we are not being heard — not even, it seems, by the leadership of multilateral development banks. Lastly, I condemn the cold war of indifference against the citizens of small islands and States who bear the brunt of this superstorm of global shocks — from rising commodity prices to the climate crisis and the pandemic. Surely, as leaders, we have the capacity to defend peace on all those fronts. I ask — where is the world’s courage to do so? I see that courage in the Fijian people I serve as we build up our country, undaunted by those challenges. Today I will share their story — not for the sake of pride, but because leaders should know the lives, progress and aspirations they threaten through their inaction. I arrived this week from the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, a leader who holds a special place in Fijian history and in the hearts of the Fijian people, as well as in my heart. My fondest memory of Her Majesty is from London, four years ago, at a welcome reception she hosted at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. She walked over to me from her greeting post to say that she had asked the then- Prince Charles to look after their other guests so that she could personally welcome me and Fiji back into the Commonwealth. It was a simple gesture, but a special affirmation of all that we had worked to achieve for Fiji’s new and true democracy. For we had done away with an undemocratic system that relegated hundreds of thousands of Fijians to the margins of society by design. We had adopted a new Constitution that echoed the spirit of the promise of the Charter of the United Nations to uphold equal rights for all peoples regardless of background, religion, ethnicity, gender, age or physical ability or provenance. It guaranteed common and equal Fijian identity and citizenship for all citizens. The strong and accountable institutions it established and the protections it upholds produced an electoral system in which every Fijian vote holds equal value. And the Fijian people have used that vote to elect my Government twice in the past eight years. In our service, we have worked to advance the civil, political and socioeconomic constitutional rights of every Fijian — from the protection of indigenous land ownership to the right to clean water and adequate sanitation, the right to a clean and healthy environment and the right to education, among many more. Since 2014, we have built or replaced hundreds of kilometres of water pipelines and improved access to clean water to over 80 per cent of all Fijians. Thousands of Fijian households have gained access to electric power for the first time — propelling electricity access in the country to upwards of 96 per cent. We have replaced or outright built dozens of bridges and crossings and lit up the country with thousands of new streetlights. We have built, upgraded or rehabilitated close to 1,000 kilometres of roads. Poverty is falling, incomes are rising. The cost of data has fallen by as much as 98 per cent. Ninety-five per cent of the Fijian population have mobile phone connectivity. And a national digital television platform, Walesi, reaches all 110 populated islands in Fiji. We achieved the longest stretch of economic growth in Fijian history. Among those wins for sustainable development, the Fijian education revolution is my greatest pride as Prime Minister. For the first time in our history, primary and secondary education are free — not free in name, but free in fact and accessible to all. Textbooks are free. Whether they travel by road, river or ocean, disadvantaged students’ transportation to schools is subsidized. We have extended opportunities for tertiary education beyond what was ever thought imaginable. And today Fijian women outnumber men in our universities. In times of crisis, our constitutional commitments to every Fijian have served us best and mattered most. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic contracted our economy by over 20 per cent. It stole half of our Government revenues, flung over 100,000 Fijians out of full-time employment and pushed us to the precipice of a socioeconomic crisis. Through decisive policy choices, we maintained the strongest possible focus on protecting people and communities. Although our tourism revenue was zero, we paid out income support to the unemployed. We did not slash a cent of our pensions and payments to elderly and disabled Fijians. In total, we paid out half a billion dollars in social assistance — the equivalent of 10 per cent of the value of our gross domestic product. With our partners’ support, we achieved near-universal vaccination of our adult population. We reopened Fiji’s borders from this past December, and we have since welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors and earned hundreds of millions in revenue. More of our people are working again, and we are set towards record-breaking double-digit economic growth for the Fijian economy this year. The pace of our recovery is possible because we prepared for it. We kept our national airline, Fiji Airways, ready to resume full operations throughout the COVID-19 crisis. We supported our tourism industry to weather the storm. That allowed us to set the terms of our reopening. With our steady recovery, we are now paying out tens of millions of dollars to help the most vulnerable Fijian families to meet the global rising cost of food, fuel and other essentials. Our eight-year-old democracy has delivered the equality that our people cherish. It has delivered the services and infrastructure on which they depend. It has certainly also shown its resilience. Our eyes are now on the next eight years — the sprint from now until 2030, which will be the most defining period ever for our people’s and planet’s future. If we do not halve carbon emissions by that critical year, the crisis of our warming planet will imperil every gain that we and every nation have made. If we fail to secure 1.5°C, we will crush any hope of improving our citizens’ quality of life. We were given glimpses of that doomsday proposition worldwide in the floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, dying coral and melting glaciers. We in Fiji felt that devastation in the 14 cyclones that have struck us since 2014. Those storms stole lives. They levelled homes. They destroyed schools. They traumatized our young people. The Pacific’s children are among the least to blame for the climate crisis, yet our children are the most affected. I challenge leaders from the high-emitting nations to name a greater global injustice than the price that young Pacific islanders are paying for climate change. Since 2014, Fiji has rebuilt or repaired more than 200 schools devasted by cyclones. We built cement and nature-based seawalls to keep out the rising seas. We stabilized vast stretches of riverbank. Where seawalls cannot suffice, we have already relocated six communities, with over 40 more in the queue to be moved. We are building back better to the standards demanded by a warmer world. We are borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars to do that. The archaic architecture of multilateral development banks and global financial services gives us little to no access to grants or concessional climate financing, particularly for adaptation. We are therefore left with little to no choice. We legislated a net-zero commitment by 2050 through the Climate Change Act 2021, which will make us more energy secure, protect us from energy price shocks beyond our control and provide us with cleaner air, better health and better jobs. Yet, despite the clear benefits, the imperative before us and all the talk that we hear of saving the planet, the world’s collective commitments remain trifling. They simply will not keep us at well below the 2°C target, let alone 1.5°C. I again urge developed nations to deliver on the $100 billion climate financing commitment at the twenty-seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Egypt this year. That is now three years overdue. Ahead of Glasgow, I told leaders not to bother packing their bags if they did not come with serious carbon-slashing commitments. I have a new ask before they arrive in Sharm El-Sheikh. They should come only if they plan to arrive true to their climate financing commitments. They should come to Sharm El-Sheikh only if they are ready to agree to a loss-and-damage mechanism, in addition to a post-2025 financing framework. That must be in the order of $750 billion, with at least 10 per cent of climate financing destined for small island States. That is our story a Fijian story in every sense. It is the story of David against Goliath — a small State facing nations, corporations and interests far bigger than we are. On behalf of every family that is watching us from home and praying for our success, we are unrelenting in this fight for its future. We are determined to provide it with opportunities to do well for itself and its families. We are determined to create new jobs in nature, in technology, in sustainable tourism and in our blue and green economies. Today we ask the world to join us. This is not the time for war. This is not the time for words. This is a time for will and a time for courage. Fiji is ready to make the coming years count for our people and for the planet. Our question is this: Are Member States with us? They should not say yes unless they plan to show it. |