Photo credit: Department of PM&NEC
The Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to the 26th Conference of the Parties, Hon. Wera Mori, says Papua New Guinea anticipates on firmly drawing tangible outcomes from the COP26 Leaders’ Summit, in Scotland.
He made these remarks during the first day of the COP26 Leaders’ Summit (Monday), where he intends to make a bold stand, reiterating Prime Minister Hon. James Marape’s country statement on climate change, delivered in New York, during the United Nations General Assembly, in September.
He said our bold statement at the summit would be 'Enough of talk. Let's take action. We need to walk the talk.”
“Papua New Guinea, like many small island developing states in the Pacific and the world, suffer the consequences of emissions by industrialized countries, which we are not responsible for.
“Now, we have our oceans – The Blue Pacific, being destroyed, where our seas have become acidic.
“Rising sea-levels are washing away coastlines on many of our small islands,” Minister Mori said.
He said PNG refuses to attend COP summits with little result.
“Our seas are being destroyed. Our food security from our oceans is being threatened from over saturation of carbon pollution.
“These problems are entirely from industrialized countries’ contribution to the destruction of our oceans, resulting in the bleaching of our coral reefs, affecting spawning grounds for our high-class tuna.
“We experience severe patterns of global warming, induced weather variations, basically creating challenges to our infrastructures,” Minister Mori said.
He made this remarks on the sidelines of the COP26 to international media such as UK Channel 5, among others.
He said by the same token, as a country that is host to seven per cent of global biodiversity and over one per cent of land mass of global landmass, Papua New Guinea feels that it is
our objective to see actual actions taken to address these crises.
“From the outcomes of this Climate Summit at the end, PNG and other countries that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, must know how and when they can access this
climate funds, which is supposed to be a $100 billion per annum.
“And therefore, it is only important and proper that we obtain positive outcomes from this climate summit or, we may find that there is no benefit from such global meetings, and that
there is no point in attending and participating in future COP meetings.
“Consequently, we need to show to the world that we are serious on combatting climate change and carbon emissions, as these problems aren’t caused by us but by the global
community,” Minister Mori said.
He also met with the executive director of the Global Climate Fund (GCF), Yannick Glemarec, on the margins of the summit, to best discuss how PNG could effectively drawdown
on climate funds that are available.
“In fact, GCF have country projects that are currently being implemented in PNG.
“I have also asked for further meetings with GCF to ensure that processes are better understood,” Minister Mori said.
In attendance with him were the Member for Moresby Northwest Hon. Lohia Boe Samuel and Member for Talasea Hon. Francis Maneke.
As for the other MPs, they have been participating and will continue to participate in various important meetings aligned with our environment and climate change goals.
Oro Governor, Hon. Gary Juffa also met with the Director General for International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), Mr Tony Simons, to further discuss their forest
conservation management project in Managalas, Oro Province.
The host country agreement with ICRAF will be formalized this week, on the sidelines of the COP26 Summit.
Article courtesy of Department of PM&NEC
