PM explains decision to send large delegation to meeting

THE decision to send a large Papua New Guinea delegation to the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) was to ensure the country’s full participation at the meeting, Prime Minister James Marape says.
Marape said the delegation, led by special envoy and Minister for Environment, Conservation and Climate Change Wera Mori, had attended COP26 and related meetings sanctioned by the National Executive Council (NEC).
He said the Government was targeting an economic return for PNG’s forests and oceans in not just the main COP26 meeting, but, other high-level meetings.
“The decision to approve for leaders to accompany the special envoy was for them, all, to participate fully at the summit and side events and to state our case that we mean business,” he said.
“If the world wants our forests to be saved, then big carbon emitting nations and industries must pay us to conserve our forests, as well as funding our climate mitigation efforts.”
Marape said Mori had assigned the leaders specific side meetings and they had performed well, given that for some of them, it was their first time to engage in an international meeting.
“The issues of climate change, its effects, the adaptation and mitigation efforts, and the whole concept of carbon credits and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, is an important and emerging agenda for our country and it is important that more of our leaders are aware of the opportunities which are going to emerge out of these discussions,” he said.
Marape said it was far less than the 62 claimed in the media and this number comprised selected Government departments and agencies, including the Climate Change Development Authority, National Energy Authority, the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Department, Forest, Agriculture, Works and Implementation, Justice and Attorney-General and the Prime Minister’s Department.
He said they had been directly involved in negotiating PNG’s position at the global climate summit on accessing global carbon markets and climate funds for adaptation.