Dame Meg calls for urgent action

DAME Meg Taylor has called for immediate action to address the effects of climate change in the Pacific islands.
She told the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Madrid, Spain “if there were a time where multilateralism was ever so crucial to humanity, it is now”.
“We need action and we need decisions. Our future as oceanic people living on a sea of islands is in the hands of this multilateral process and the related global commitments that emerge from it,” Dame Meg said.
“As the secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum and the Pacific Ocean Commissioner, I stand before you as a representative of a regional bloc comprising 18 Pacific countries that span 40 million square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean.
“A regional bloc at the forefront of the drastic and life-changing impacts of climate change impacts that are altering lives, communities, and economies on a daily basis.”
She said that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change represented the pinnacle of the multilateral systems that governed the global conversations on how to effectively mitigate and adapt to climate change.
“The vitality of this process and it’s outcomes to the Pacific people cannot be underscored,” she said.
Three special intergovernmental panel on climate change reports presented “unwavering, indisputable scientific evidence on the dire situations faced in the Pacific”.
“We cannot afford to stall these climate change negotiations and delay the crucial decisions any longer.”