Climate ambition requires resources. COP30 must deliver a Baku-to-Belém Roadmap that scales finance to the level of the crisis, simplifies access, and guarantees predictability for communities like Fiji and Pacific islands who are on the frontlines of climate change impacts.
“When a cyclone strikes, it wipes out schools, hospitals, bridges — the foundations of dignity and development — in a single night. And every time we rebuild, we rebuild with debt,” said Mosese Bulitavu, Fiji’s Minister for Environment and Climate Change
“This is why finance is not charity for us. It is justice.”
Speaking at the High-Level segment of climate change’s biggest global stage at COP30 in Belem Brazil, Bulitavu reminded that as a “son of the Pacific”, the Ocean is our identity, our culture, and our inheritance.
“That inheritance now stands at risk,” he said.
Bulitavu, who is also in Belem as the Pacific’s Political Champion for Climate Finance, is amongst Pacific leaders, negotiators and delegates amplifying the one Pacific Voice on the region’s climate change response priorities.
Climate finance is amongst those priorities.
Bulitavu said the amount required to address the impacts of global warming and the climate crisis must move from billions to the trillions.
“Not someday, but now,” he urged.
COP30 takes place a decade after the Paris Agreement, and the Fiji Minister noted that the world is still drifting away from the 1.5°C limit, a critical number that determines whether Pacific islands thrive or disappear
“For us in Fiji and across the Pacific, 1.5°C is not a political target — it is a lifeline,” said Bulitavu.
“The recent Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice made it clear: every State has a legal obligation to act in line with the best available science.
“But science also makes something else painfully clear — without rapid, scaled, and predictable finance, vulnerable countries will continue to pay the highest price for a crisis we did not create.
“Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries contribute the least to global emissions, yet we are bearing the greatest costs.”
Fiji is doing its part, the Minister pointed out, with the launch of its enhanced NDC3.0 last month, a plan he said is rooted in “urgency and hope.”
He also highlighted the critical need to bend the emissions curve by phasing out fossil fuels and accelerating a just, orderly transition to clean energy for all.
“We cannot protect our Ocean — the beating heart of the Pacific — without protecting our climate. Excellencies, history will judge us by whether we matched courage with action,” he reiterated.
“Let COP30 be remembered as the moment we delivered — for the vulnerable, for the future, and for the planet we all call home,” he said.
