O’Neill shares PNG’s climate change story at economic forum

National

PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill says there are island nations in the Pacific at the mercy of the impacts of climate change.
He is in Davos, Switzerland, for the world economic forum on climate change.
O’Neill met former United States Vice-President Al Gore, a strong advocate of climate change preventative measures around the world.
“Papua New Guinea is sadly home to the world’s first climate change refugees from the Carterets Islands,” he said.
People on the island had to be moved because of the rising sea level.
O’Neill said other populated islands in the Pacific faced the same problem.
He said Gore understood their plight and the need for global action.
“There are island nations in the Pacific that will cease to be nations if the world does not take action.”
O’Neill said the world economic forum was one of the organisations which needed to take action and advance plans to protect vulnerable people.
Pacific Islands states were concerned when US President Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change after he came into office last year.
The island states had been the most vocal advocates for aggressive carbon reduction targets and had welcomed the Paris Agreement at the time of its creation.
Islands such a Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands face the threat of rising sea levels because they are atolls.