PINA

As the final week of COP29 got underway, Fiji’s delegation, alongside other Pacific nations, remains steadfast in advocating for progress on critical climate issues despite the diplomatic challenges in the negotiation rooms. Ensuring team-Fiji stays the course is its Permanent Secretary for Environment and Climate Change, Dr Sivendra Michael, who also serves as the country’s lead negotiator at COP29. In virtual...

An international legal judgment on governments’ obligations to prevent human-driven climate change has become more crucial after Donald Trump’s election victory raised the prospect of the U.S again withdrawing from the landmark Paris agreement, a lawyer in the case said. The UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to begin hearings on 02 December that will culminate in it...

The high-level diplomatic push for climate action shifted southward on Tuesday as G20 leaders meeting in Rio sent a clear signal to negotiating teams at stalled UN climate talks in Baku on the need to rapidly and substantially ‘scale up climate finance from billions to trillions from all sources.’ While the statement from the world’s leading economies – and biggest...

Pacific climate leaders were frustrated by the sluggish rate of progress made during the first week of the UN climate meeting in Azerbaijan. The big goal of this COP is to increase annual climate financing target from US$100 billion originally set in 2009 for developed nations to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts. Now into week two...

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown is not surprised at the swell of opposition against the Treaty Principles Bill in Aotearoa. “These are certainly issues that will heat up the passions of people, so I'm not surprised at all that it has led to this nationwide hīkoi,” Brown told RNZ Pacific at a seabed mining meeting in Auckland. He went on...

Nauru, and Pacific communities at the forefront of climate change impacts, are not just amplifying the call for a 1.5-degree world simply to stay alive. Nauru’s Minister for Climate Change and National Resilience, Asterio Appi, has told world leaders attending the latest round of the global climate change negotiations in Baku Azerbaijan the people of his country deserve more. “We know...

Australia has been accused of being “out of touch with the reality of climate change” by campaigners as it bids to co-host the COP31 summit in 2026 with Pacific Island nations. Talks at the UN’s COP29 in Azerbaijan have entered their second week, with Australia taking a leading role in climate finance negotiations, while also pushing to secure COP31. A joint...

The world needs US$1.3 trillion dollars to deliver 1.5 degrees. The alternative is the burden of tens of trillions in loss, damage, and costs over the next decade in and an unstable and dangerous plus 3-degree world. The message was delivered loud and clear by Biman Prasad, Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister, when he addressed world leaders on Tuesday, during the High-Level...

As global attention turn to what and how COP29 would decide on a new finance goal, the legend of a Palauan fisherman from the village of Ngarchemai has been used to illustrate the risks of indecision, and the need for world leaders to choose wisely for the survival of humanity. The fisherman apparently dove into the water after a turtle...

Opinion by Palau President, Surangel Whipps Jr A week into Cop29 negotiations, we’re not moving fast enough – or anywhere for that matter – on some key issues. Climate finance, or more specifically the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) to replace the current US$100bn a year goal, and the work to operationalise the loss and damage fund, are key expected outcomes...