UN General Assembly
2018

The Pacific region is committed to strengthening climate resilience as quickly as possible so as to build a strong region. That emerged from the Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit held in Nauru earlier this month. Nature continues to warn us of the imminent dangers to our planet as it approaches a point of no return beyond which our climate systems will no longer be able to cope. Summer heatwaves, huge forest fires, extreme drought and the increasing frequency and scale of weather events have brought the debate on global warming to an indisputable level of importance. I sincerely hope that those warnings will provoke concerted climate action. As the world’s most at-risk country in terms of exposure to natural hazards, according to the World Risk Index of the United Nations University, for Vanuatu climate change continues to be the biggest threat to attaining the national targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and it is currently our worst problem, putting the lives of tens of thousands at risk. If