Volkswacht Bodensee - 'It's personal': Fiji minister pushes better climate finance at pre-COP

Lynda Tabuya has partnered with Australian counterpart Chris Bowen to lead the "pre-COP" meeting in Nadi and Tuvalu, a precursor to the larger UN-sponsored global climate summit -- known as COP31 -- to be held in Turkey next month.

She told AFP one of her main messages to delegates in Nadi was the need to speed up the distribution of money for climate solutions.

"It's frustrating at times," Tabuya said. "We even feel it on a government level.

"Even after we've secured finance, it takes a long process," she added.

"Some have even taken three to five years, where the access to climate finance is quite difficult."

Tabuya's own village of Tiliva on the island Kadavu, about 90 kilometres (56 miles) south of Fiji's main island, has been affected by rising seas.

"We've lost about four metres (13 feet) of the shoreline to sea level rise," Tabuya said.

"Some families have had to relocate to the hills, but even in high tide the ground is soggy because the water doesn't recede."

It took her village, which is off the energy grid, more than a decade to secure finance for a solar system.

She said climate finance is taking far too long, and loans are not a solution.

"Part of our appeal going to COP is to make the current finance structure to be restructured so that it's simplified," Tabuya said.

"It's frustrating. We are the least emitters in the Pacific, and yet we are the most disproportionately affected.

"So we appeal to the world to look more at grant-based finance because it will fund a seawall, like I need in my village. So it's very personal."

It's one reason Pacific Island nations are trying to take climate finance into their own hands.

Regional leaders have set up the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF) with the hopes of raising $500 million, but so far have brought in commitments for less than half of that.

Fiji announced on Wednesday an additional $10 million for that fund, with the United Kingdom giving 10 million pounds ($13.2 million).

The UK's climate envoy, Rachel Kyte, told AFP on the sidelines of the meetings that the PRF was "potentially a game changer" for the Pacific.

"It was imagined by Pacific leaders. It's then been built by them. It's owned by them, and it's managed by them. And we're investing in it," Kyte said.

"What's important about it is that it can now invest in the most remote parts of the region, and it can reach the last mile."

"So not lots of intermediaries, international organisations managing money, but straight into communities."

E.Burkhard--VB