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As Fiji strives to expedite and expand its response to climate change, its focus still lies on securing funding at the 29th Conference of Parties this year.

The message was conveyed by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad at the opening of the Pacific Risk to Resilience Week at the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat in Suva today.

He says the will of the government is to accelerate the fight against climate change and, therefore urges a thorough evaluation of opportunities to increase capacity to tackle climate change.

Professor Prasad says our delegates should not only deliver substantive items on the agenda but also provide hope for people in our communities at COP29.

“We need to quantify better our adaptation, our mitigation and our loss and damage needs. We need to be clearer about how climate and nature financing can be brought close together.”

Professor Prasad says Fiji must develop its solutions, as it cannot rely solely on global climate-change financing architecture and international climate-change regime alone to provide solutions for the crisis.

He says Fiji and other Pacific Island Countries cannot afford to be inconsistent with their efforts, which necessitates a collaborative response to climate change.

The week-long Pacific Risk to Resilience Week is aimed at convening climate-change stakeholders to assess efforts in addressing disaster and climate resilience building at the national and regional levels.