The Pacific Island Forum climate change adviser Exsley Taloiburi has warned of more severe tropical cyclones in the region in the coming years.
Taloiburi said at the beginning of this year, Fiji had about three cyclones that wreaked in six weeks.
He said for the last seven years there have been six category five cyclones impacting the region with an average annual cost of US$500 million.
“Primarily at a time when a lot of our countries are incurring a lot of debt to respond to the virus there are recurring impacts of disasters,” he said.
“The three important issues ministers will be deliberating on next week for the forum economic ministers meetings are debts, coronavirus and natural disasters.
“I will start off by providing a bit of an update on the climate finance paper first and then move on to the disaster risk financing paper,” he said.
He said the current challenges that regional countries are facing is further exacerbated with the impacts of climate change, which at the moment is not slowing down.
SOURCE: FIJI LIVE/PACNEWS
