A climate activist group representing 14 countries from around the Pacific has launched a website to give a voice to their concerns at November's international climate talks in Germany.
The Pacific Climate Warriors say with Fiji having Presidency of COP 23 this year, they are working hard to ensure Pacific voices are heard in the negotiating rooms in Bonn.
Jenny Meyer asked the Pacific Campaigner Fenton Lutunatabua what the group is hoping to achieve in Germany.
High tides in Marshall Islands in March 2016 hit a seawall.
Photo: RNZI/Giff Johnson
Transcript
FENTON LUTUNATABUA: One of the key things that they have been calling for is for an end to the era of fossil fuels, and adjust ambitions towards a hundred per cent renewable energy. They are calling for the support of the delivery of finance needed for countries already facing irreversible loss and damage because of climate change. They are calling for what was agreed to in the Paris Agreement, what's needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. And they are also calling for the UNFCCC plus's to look at ensuring that the big polluters are kept out of their climate negotiations so that it really is a safe space for people who are most impacted by climate change to discuss what is needed for their future.
JENNY MEYER: Are you involving around the region? You're reaching out to a various number of countries around the region, is that right?
FL: That's absolutely correct. So the Pacific Climate Warriors network works in about 14 Pacific Island nations and in each country we have a group that are doing on the ground organising that's needed for this climate meeting. So we are spread across the region and we also work with the Pacific diaspora in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
JM: And in terms of things like renewable energy, I mean there have been some real gains there particularly with some countries achieving a huge increase in the use of renewable energy in the last few years, do you think that there are any of those more positive stories that you would be relating there in Germany?
FL: Most definitely. One of the key things that we want to share with the world as well is not only the realities of climate impact that we live in but also but as well as the resilience of the people in the Pacific who live in a perpetual state of rehabilitation but are so powerfully resilient. Again another example that comes to my mind right now is the story that is happening in Tokelau where Litia Maiava as well as Mikaele Maiava they run keyhole gardens that look at building gardens above the earth. And it's such a great initiative, its community led and its community driven. And so we are definitely looking at sharing stories of resilience and what resistance in the Pacific looks like, what resistance against climate change looks like. So we are definitely looking at painting a truer picture of what it means to be a Pacific Islander at the forefront of climate change.
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