‘Fiji will do everything in its power to draw global attention to the urgent need for more decisive action by the industrial nations on climate change.’
Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama made this statement while addressing the 50th session of the International Sugar Organisation Council in London.
Bainimarama says we must build our resilience to the threat to the industry posed by climate change.
He says we must constantly scan the horizon for new markets and work as hard.
He stresses that we cannot have the second biggest carbon emitter in the world withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
He adds that because time is running out ,the world as a whole must act.
Bainimarama highlights that Fiji was relatively fortunate in that Winston spared our main tourism areas and our principal source of national revenue.
However, he says we are acutely conscious as a nation that we must prepare for a terrifying new era in which extreme weather events like Winston become more frequent because of climate change.
The Prime Minister says that before Winston struck, our crop estimate for the current season was 1.84 million metric tonnes of cane. But that has had to be reviewed downwards three times to the current 1.354 million metric tonnes.
He says Fijian industry is undertaking a review of its Sugar Action Plan 2013-2017 to identify what is working and to set new targets and time lines, plus new policy guidelines and investment plans, to take us forward.
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