Friday’s Vanuatu archipelago declared an emergency in climate change and announced a $1.2 million plan to reduce the effects of climate change.
Prime Minister Bob Loughman made a speech before Parliament acknowledging that the Pacific region has already been affected by rising sea levels, severe weather events, and other factors.
The archipelago, home to 300,000 people, has been affected by two devastating cyclones in the last decade.
“Earth is already hot and insecure,” Mr. Loughman stated, “we are now in danger, not only in the future.”
The motion was unanimously supported by Parliament. It follows similar climate emergency declarations made by dozens of countries including Canada, Britain, and Fiji.
The Prime Minister stated that Vanuatu has the responsibility to ensure that countries responsible respond to the urgency and magnitude of the crisis. “The use emergency is used to signal the need for additional measures beyond those that are already in place.”
Vanuatu is leading a diplomatic campaign in order to get a legal opinion of the International Court of Justice (the highest court of the United Nations) on the effects of global warming.
Although the small state of the Pacific hopes that the ICJ’s legal opinion is not binding, it will help to create international legislation to address the human and material consequences of global warming.
This initiative will be discussed at the September UN General Assembly.
The Prime Minister also spoke out about a $1.2 Billion plan to reduce the effects of climate change. He said that most of its funding would have to come from donors countries.
