New trust to address climate issues

 A TRUST fund will be created to address climate change issues in the country.

Forest and Climate Change Minister Patrick Pruaitch told parliament last Friday that as soon as the trust fund was set up, Planning and Monitoring Minister Charles Abel would set aside money for it. 

“Climate change is a concern for our country, our government and our people. It’s a concern gaining momentum worldwide in so far as development is concerned,” he said. 

“Climate change has some cross-cutting issues and that need to be addressed in line with our development aspirations. On one hand we’re talking about moving forward to achieve positive growth and on the other we need to look at our environment, how we do business in terms of how we meet the greenhouse gas in our country.”

Pruaitch agreed that climate change was affecting the lower atolls in the country and it was ‘’very important that measures were taken to address these effects’’. 

He informed the House that a policy was being developed and would be tabled in cabinet soon.

He said ADB had made available immediate funding to address the issues and part of the grant would be dealing with a work boat that would attend to the needs of the lower-lying atolls. 

Pruaitch said that in response to National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop’s questions on whether the office of climate change had any strategies to address the issues on sea level rise.