UN General Assembly
2018

I am confident that I speak for all Fijians and Pacific islanders when I say that I tend to lose patience with national leaders who proclaim their deep concern over climate change and then do little or nothing to lead their nations onto a more ambitious path for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Leaders who ignore that threat and give their people new coal-fired power plants instead of a better future for their children are either tragically short-sighted or simply engaging in a most cynical form of betrayal. And their people — all people — will bear the burden. The world has embraced the Pacific tradition of talanoa, a tradition of open and honest dialogue. That will help to raise our collective ambition. But ambition without action and without a plan is just talk. The Talanoa Dialogue will reach a crescendo in Katowice, Poland, at COP-24. We cannot let Katowice fail. Katowice must not became another Copenhagen.