Yearender: Fiji struggling with climate change amid rising sea level

Of the greatest challenges faced by countries like Fiji in the Pacific, one is the implication of climate change.

STRUGGLING FOR SURVIVAL

Vaseva Ranadi, a villager of one of the coastal villages in Tailevu Province, said climate change meant many things to ordinary villagers like her, including a change to planting and harvesting seasons.

"Weather conditions are more extreme - it's either too cold, too rainy or too hot. Things are different today everywhere on the land and in the sea, areas which used to be shallow are deeper and even our piggeries along the seas shores are drowning in sea water because of rising sea level - it is real and not a joke," said Ranadi.

Villagers have even resorted to building sea walls to prevent the sea water from seeping into their villages in the lowland, the 53-year-old farmer said.

With climate change, temperatures have increased, sea level has risen and ocean acidification has been on the rise for Fiji, an archipelago of over 330 islands. There are anticipated impacts on infrastructure caused by the projected increase in the frequency and intensity of cyclones and other tropical storms.

It is predicted that temperatures in Fiji will continue to increase, rainfall patterns will change, and there will be less frequent but more intense tropical cyclones as sea level continues to rise.

Climate change is not only forcing relocation of homes because of rising sea level but also change in health patterns, according to Fiji's Ministry of Health.

Climate change even affected disease patterns and its distribution - for example, dengue fever historically would appear in intervals of three to five years but today it is more frequent, Health Minister Jone Usamate said.

Last year, the Fijian government identified more than 670 villages threatened by climate change while over 40 had the potential to be relocated in the next 10 years.

PACIFIC VOICE

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama continued to warn the effects of climate change which involves the loss of coastal land and infrastructure through erosion, flooding and the threat of storm surges in the island nation.

People in small islands developing states like Fiji are the victims of global warming, which pushes sea levels higher and swamp lands traditionally inhabited by people.

At the recent Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF), leaders made a call to the 2015 Paris climate conference to limit global average temperature increase to below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in order to allow transition toward deep-decarbonization.

Pacific islands leaders demanded the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement be legally binding and the agreement establish explicit provisions which ensure the strongest possible efforts will be made to achieve and continuously enhance national and global mitigation action, including review of mitigation efforts every five years, with opportunities to recommit to stronger action as informed by science.

The leaders also wanted a special provision in the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement to fast-track urgent actions required to assist the most vulnerable countries that are already experiencing existential threats from climate change.

They called for an increased support for adaptation measures that could address all vulnerable sectors including health, water and sanitation, energy, agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

TAKING THE INITIATIVE

Fiji is intent on being a team player when confronting one of the biggest challenges to mankind nowadays as Bainimarama has pledged a 30-percent carbon emission reduction by 2030.

This drastic reduction would be achieved by generating 99 percent of Fiji's electricity needs from renewable sources, such as water or the sun, up from about 60 percent in 2013.

The China-aided Kiuva sea wall project has been seen as an example of the Fijian government's commitment in addressing sea level rise and protecting villages along coastal areas.

"The rise in sea level is leading to coastal erosion. With the majority of villages and settlements in Viti Levu located along the coast, there is noticeable infiltration of the sea into the village compound during high tide," said Inia Seruiratu, Fiji's minister for agriculture, fisheries, forests, rural and maritime development while opening the project two years ago.

"The Kiuva sea wall stands today not only as a landmark in itself but manifests engineering skills in having constructed a structure that would meet the challenges we all face in all other parts of the world and that is the rise in sea level," Seruiratu said.

For this year's climate conference in Paris, Fiji, which sees the meeting as "our last chance to get the world to act," sent a 40-member delegation to lobby the world to save small island nations.

"Our message in Paris will be simple. We are doing what we can to help ourselves. It is now time - high time - for the industrialized nations to do what they must do to save us and save our planet. They must cut their carbon emissions and by much more than many of them are planning to do," Bainimarama said at an international forum in Brussels.

At regional and international forums, Bainimarama has pointed out that the effects of climate change in the region have already begun threatening the lives and existence of Pacific islanders.

"We are all suffering in the Pacific al­ready to a lesser or greater extent by the encroaching seas. In Fiji, we've already had to move some villages out of harm's way and have identified more than 600 other communities that are under threat and need close attention," the Fijian prime minister said.

"Binding cuts in carbon emissions reduces the rate of global warming and is vital to preventing the sea level rises that in the near future threaten the very existence of Kiri­bati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, plus vast tracts of land in other coastal island nations," said Bainimarama.

It is an encouraging signal that the international community is committed to a low-carbon future. A landmark deal was reached on Saturday at the Paris conference, which aims to hold the temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius and strives to limit it to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Fiji, together with other small island countries, is still struggling to cope with the consequences of climate change, which might only be a concept for some countries, but a life-threatening situation for others. Endit