Tonga has questioned why the international community has failed to act on the climate crisis despite years of warnings from Pacific leaders, saying the consequences are already reaching the region.
Tonga Prime Minister Fatafehi Fakafānua in his address at the UN General Assembly said Pacific leaders had repeatedly raised the alarm over climate change and other threats but the global response remained inadequate.
“I stand here mindful that Pacific leaders have come before me, raising the same warnings, making the same appeals.
“Today, I am compelled to make them again,” Fakafānua said.
He said the issue was no longer whether the world had heard the Pacific’s message, but why it had failed to act.
“The question is not whether the world has heard this message; the question is: Why has it still not acted?”
Fakafānua said small island developing states should not bear a disproportionate cost for challenges they had done little to create.
He called for international processes to recognise the links between climate change and the ocean, saying the “ocean-climate nexus” must be addressed through a coordinated approach.
He also called for a more inclusive United Nations Security Council that recognises the “triple planetary crisis” of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution as a serious threat to international peace and security.
Fakafānua said vulnerable countries also needed a global financial system capable of delivering timely and accessible financing.
“The next Secretary-General must understand these realities intimately,” he said.
Fakafānua said Tonga had nominated Ecuadorian candidate Ivonne Baki for the next UN Secretary-General because her vision for the United Nations “speaks to the needs of vulnerable States”.
He said the Pacific was also facing immediate security threats, including transnational crime, illicit drugs, illegal fishing, cyber threats and the unresolved consequences of nuclear testing.
“The most pressing threats are already reaching our shores,” Fakafānua said.
He said the Pacific loses an estimated US$500 million each year from cyclones and floods, underscoring the need for greater investment in regional resilience.
Fakafānua called for increased funding for the Pacific Resilience Facility, the Weather Ready Pacific initiative and Tonga’s climate trust fund.
He said these mechanisms were essential to strengthening resilience and reducing the economic costs of increasingly severe weather events.
“We call on all our partners to invest in these Pacific-designed and Pacific-owned solutions
“We will do our part; we simply ask that others do theirs,” he said.
