BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
The 54th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders’ Summit wrapped up in Honiara this month with a strong call for urgent global action on climate change, which leaders reaffirmed as the “single greatest threat” to Pacific peoples’ livelihoods, security and well-being.
In the PIF final communiqué, PIF leaders said climate change remains a major barrier to achieving the region’s 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The leaders pledged to continue championing the needs of vulnerable nations and urged faster implementation of the Paris Agreement, stressing the importance of keeping the 1.5°C target “within reach.”
But even as Pacific nations pushed for stronger climate commitments, U.S. President Donald Trump struck a sharply opposing tone at this year’s United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday this week.
Trump described climate change as “the greatest con job ever committed on the world,” while criticising the European Union for reducing its carbon emissions, which he claimed had damaged its economy.
“All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong,” Trump said, warning that investment in renewable energy would harm national economies.
Since taking office, President Trump has twice withdrawn the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement, aligning the country with only Yemen, Iran and Libya.
Trump’s administration continues to pursue an “energy dominance” agenda centred on fossil fuel production and exports.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who hosted a climate summit this week, answered that global finance is already shifting.
He noted that US$2 trillion was invested in clean energy last year, overtaking fossil fuels by US$800 billion.
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