Fiji, a country located in the heart of the South Pacific has told an Asian security summit that climate change is a bigger threat to the Pacific than military tensions.
Pacific states have urged advanced industrialised nations to do more to combat climate change even as the world is now about 1.2C warmer than it was in the 19th Century – the result of humans burning fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide (CO2).
But much attention has focused on China’s growing challenge to Western strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region. In April China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands, causing concern in Australia, New Zealand and the US. The details of it were not disclosed.
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The country’s Defence Minister Inia Seruiratu said made this known while addressing a summit in Singapore which focused on China-US tensions and the Ukraine war.
“Machine guns, fighter jets… are not our primary security concern. The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change,” Seruiratu was quoted as saying during the summit.
The minister told the forum, called the Shangri-La Dialogue that Cyclones have repeatedly battered Fiji and other low-lying Pacific countries and that It threatens the very hopes and dreams of prosperity.
Reports show that floods in Fiji- blessed with 333 tropical islands that are home to some of the friendliest people on Earth- caused by tropic cyclones have displaced thousands of people in recent years and wrought economic havoc.
“Waves are crashing at our doorsteps, winds are battering our homes, we are being assaulted by this enemy from many angles,” Seruiratu told delegates during the summit.
Story was adapted from the BBC.
