Pacific Islands Development Forum

The Charter was signed in Suva on 04 September 2015 at the conclusion of the historical Third PIDF Leaders Summit.

There are currently ten signatories of the PIDF Charter. They are Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu, Pacific Island Association and Non-Governmental Organisation (PIANGO), Pacific Islands Private Sector Organisation (PIPSO).

She has been attending the Pacific Islands Development Forum in Fiji where Pacific island countries have been coming up with a position to take to crucial UN climate change talks in Paris in November.

The statement includes a demand on limiting global temperature to 1 point 5 degrees over pre-industrial levels.

Mrs Robinson says the statement will have an impact on industrialised nations.

His appointment was announced by Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama at the PIDF Summit that ended on Friday.

“I have an important announcement to make – the name of the new Secretary General of the PIDF.

“The person we have chosen to take our organization forward is Mr Francois Martel of Samoa.

Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said the Summit has been an extraordinary gathering in which they found a collective voice to demand, in the strongest terms, that the world finally face up to the challenge of climate change.

He said it gives the Pacific a fighting chance to save its coastal communities and indeed their entire nations. 

“I have been deeply impressed by the resolve shown by my fellow Leaders and by every participant to get this issue placed firmly on the global agenda, 13 weeks out from the United Nations Conference on Climate Change. 

The panel was made up of the Kiribati President Anote Tong, Prime Minister of Tonga Samiuela Akilisi Pohiva, Tuvalu PM Enele Sopoaga and President of Federated States of Marshall Islands  Christopher Loeak.

Pohiva asked why should they migrate.

He put forward three questions:

–         Where will they move?

–           How are they going to move?

–           Who will move them?

President Tong said moving was the last resort.

Meeting in Fiji at the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) in early September, heads of government were militant in their readiness to confront the world’s polluting nations in Paris in December at the UN Climate Change conference.

At the PIDF meeting Thursday, the forum agreed that compensation will be a key component in the Suva Declaration which will be adopted today at the conclusion of the meeting.

PIDF Interim Secretary-General Amena Yauvoli said “those who are responsible for emitting the most greenhouse gases should pay” as their actions contradicted what they had agreed upon in the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC).

A panel of Pacific Island leaders stressed this during a talanoa session on Climate Change and Migration Thursday.

“The question is, it’s not always about what we take to Paris as important, what is possibly more important what we will come away from Paris with. We really want to come away from Paris with some clear guarantees that something is going to be done that will ensure our future generations will have a chance of survival,” said  Kiribati President Anote Tong.