Secretary-General's joint press encounter with Prime Minister of Fiji Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama
Suva, 16 May 2019
Thank you, your Excellency Honourable Prime Minister, for your words and especially thank you very much for the
extremely warm hospitality I have been enjoying in your wonderful country.
This visit has two dimensions: the Fijian dimension and the Pacific dimension.
In the Fijian dimension it is a visit of gratitude in which I want to express how much we appreciate the extraordinary
contribution of the Fijian people and the Fijian Government to all the important areas of action of the United Nations
and all the important areas of international cooperation.
Fiji has been a strong and committed partner in peacekeeping. Fijian soldiers and Fijian police officers have shown
enormous determination, enormous courage, and some of them, unfortunately, have lost their lives protecting the lives of
vulnerable people – of women, of children – in some of the most dangerous places in the world.
There is a depth of gratitude that all of the international community in relation to Fiji that I want to express very
clearly, being side by side with a former peacekeeper.
At the same time, Fijian leadership both in relation to climate change, with the Chair of the COP23, and in relation to
the oceans and the need to protect our oceans that unfortunately are being undermined in so many dimensions. Through the
Oceans Conference that took place in New York and Fijian leadership, through the action of my Special Envoy, Peter
Thompson, who is a Fijian, and through the commitment now to the next [Ocean] Conference in Lisbon, again Fijian
leadership has been an extremely important element in making sure that we are able to rally the international community
to protect our oceans and to win the climate change battle.
The Prime Minister was telling me in the meeting we just had that climate change corresponds to the battle of our lives
from the point of view of Fiji and the Pacific. As Secretary-General of the United Nations I have many battles, but I
have no doubt to say that as a grandfather this is also the battle of my life.
It is absolutely essential that we mobilize the international community to make sure that by the end of the century
temperatures will not be above 1.5 degrees what they were when this process started. It is absolutely essential for that
to be possible that we reach in the world carbon neutrality in 2050. And this requires an enormous transformational
effort in energy, in industry, in agriculture, in the oceans, and also an enormous commitment in finance in order to
support the developing countries that not only are showing, as is the case of the Pacific, their leadership in
mitigation, in reducing emissions, in adopting renewable energy for instance, but that are also on the frontline of the
dramatic impact of climate change and require huge investments in adaptation that the international community needs to
support.
I’ll be flying tomorrow to Tuvalu which is probably, one of the most - if not the most - impacted country in the world
by climate change. I want with this visit to do everything possible to make sure that the international community is
mobilized for our Summit in September and for the renewal in 2020 of the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions,
the commitments made by Member States in relation to mitigation, adaptation and to finance.
We need to recognize that for the moment we’re not winning this battle. For the moment, we are not on track, not even
for the commitments made in Paris to be respected. We absolutely need a much stronger political will to be able to
reverse this trend and to be able to rescue our planet and there is nowhere better than in the Pacific. We feel the
moral obligation to do so, to rally the international community for this objective and to thank the people and the
governments of the Pacific for the extraordinary example they’re providing to all of us.
Question: Secretary-General, did you discuss the human rights situation in Fiji with the Prime Minister?
SG: Fiji is now member of the Human Rights Council, Fiji has been presenting its universal periodic review report, and
we had the occasion to discuss all the areas in which the government is committed to make progress in this direction.