Praneeta Prakash 
[Source: Charan Jeath Singh / Facebook]
Despite Fiji being one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in the world, not a single sugar cane farmer in Fiji has directly accessed a cent from any pool of climate finance.
Sugar Minister Charan Jeath Singh made the comments at COP 29 during the session titled “Beyond Big Banks: Financing Decentralized Climate Solutions to the Global South.”
Singh is calling for a transformation in global climate finance to ensure vulnerable communities receive urgent support, especially sugarcane farmers in Fiji.
In his remarks during Minister Singh outlined the blunt reality faced by Fijian sugar cane farmers and rural communities who continue to bear the brunt of climate change impacts without any access to climate finance.
Singh says not a single farmer in Fiji who has lost his or her sugarcane to a flood or a cyclone has been able to walk into a financial institution, present a proposal to fund farm-level recovery, adaptation, and resilience building, and secure funding for it.
He emphasized that the gap between the global commitments made in forums like COP and the experiences of farmers in rural Fiji is a gap of trust, commitment, and political will.
He further urged the global community to rethink its approach to climate finance and outlined key principles that must guide the flow of climate finance to vulnerable communities, which are climate finance with Dignity, Respect and purpose.
Singh is further calling the international communities to take bold action to ensure that decentralized climate finance flows directly to those in need, alluding that Climate finance with respect and dignity is surely not too big an ask of the international community.
