Fiji, moving villages inundated by rising seas, wants big emitters to pay
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Monday
February 06, 2023

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 06, 2023
Fiji, moving villages inundated by rising seas, wants big emitters to pay

World+Biz

Reuters
05 August, 2022, 11:05 am
Last modified: 05 August, 2022, 11:08 am

Related News

  • 'Rambo' Rabuka returns as Fiji prime minister
  • Fiji military called in to 'help maintain order' after disputed election
  • Fiji in media blackout ahead of national election on Wednesday
  • Crunch UN biodiversity meeting seeks to save 'planet in crisis'
  • COP27 climate summit missed chance for ambition on fossil fuels, critics say

Fiji, moving villages inundated by rising seas, wants big emitters to pay

Reuters
05 August, 2022, 11:05 am
Last modified: 05 August, 2022, 11:08 am
Local resident Rapuma Tuqio, 67, looks out at seawater flooding around his home at high tide in Veivatuloa Village, Fiji, July 16, 2022. He has lived in the village for around 20 years, including 12 or 13 years in that seaside home. REUTERS/Loren Elliott
Local resident Rapuma Tuqio, 67, looks out at seawater flooding around his home at high tide in Veivatuloa Village, Fiji, July 16, 2022. He has lived in the village for around 20 years, including 12 or 13 years in that seaside home. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

Boats moor next to living rooms on Fiji's Serua Island, where water breaches the seawall at high tide, flooding into the village. Planks of wood stretch between some homes, forming a makeshift walkway as saltwater inundates gardens.

Village elders always believed they would die here on prized land where their chiefs are buried.

But as the community runs out of ways to adapt to the rising Pacific Ocean, the 80 villagers face the painful decision whether to move.

Semisi Madanawa, raising three children who wade through playgrounds, says that given the flooding, erosion and exposure to extreme weather, the village may have to relocate to Fiji's main island to secure a future for the next generation.

Village elders are resisting, wondering if land reclamation might stop the sea from taking Serua Island's homes and ancestral burial sites, he says.

"It takes time for an idea to settle in the hearts of us human beings so we can accept the changes that are coming," says Madanawa, 38. "Climate change is happening and we need to make a decision."

Serua Island is one of many coastal villages making difficult decisions about their future, seeking government assistance for expensive projects to adapt or move, say Fiji government officials.

Leaders of 15 low-lying Pacific island nations declared climate change their "single greatest existential threat" at a mid-July summit in Fiji's capital, Suva. 

Facing some of the most direct effects of climate change, they want developed nations, who contributed the most to global warming, not only to curb their emissions but to pay for the steps that islanders must take to protect their people from rising sea levels. The push has become a key battle at United Nations climate conferences.

Building seawalls, planting mangroves and improving drainage are no longer enough to save villages in many cases, says Shivanal Kumar, a climate-change adaptation specialist in Fiji's economy ministry.

"A lot of communities are in genuine crisis, they've been trying to survive," he says. "The impacts of climate change have been felt for many years and there came a time where they gave up and said it's now time to move."

Relocation aims to preserve human rights by protecting people from rising seas, bigger storm surges and more extreme cyclones, Kumar says.

But the funds pledged by developed nations at UN climate conferences do not cover relocation, only adaptation, such as building a seawall, officials say.

At last year's global climate conference, called COP26, developed nations agreed only to keep talking about compensation for the unavoidable impacts of climate change, including migration, suffered by vulnerable societies.

The Pacific leaders at their summit called for developed nations to show meaningful progress at COP27 on a new goal - swift funding for such "loss and damage".

The president of COP26, British politician Alok Sharma, said in Suva on Wednesday he understood the disappointment of Pacific villagers on the front line of climate change.

"You are forced to deal with the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions generated largely by the biggest emitting countries, who are a long way from here. This is not a crisis of your making," he said in a speech.

"We are going to have to find a way of having a substantive discussion on loss and damage at COP27."

Fiji, an archipelago of hundreds of islands some 2,000 km (1,200 miles) north of New Zealand, in 2014 became the first Pacific island nation to relocate a community because of rising sea levels.

Six villages have moved or plan to with government support, but a new process to prioritise the most urgent relocations is still under development.

A further 795 will need to move, says climate youth activist Salote Nasalo, who says she loses sleep thinking about where they can go. Pacific youth will continue protesting against inaction on financing by the big emitters, says Nasolo, a University of South Pacific student.

The first community to relocate was Vunidogoloa, after villagers invited officials to see how they lived with water up to their knees. Saltwater had destroyed the ability of the 150 residents to grow crops, taking away livelihoods and food security, says former village headman Sailosi Ramatu.

In the new village 1.5 km (1 mile) inland on Vanua Levu Island, children now sit outside their homes, dry feet planted firmly on the ground.

Ramatu, 63, says it took time to persuade the elders to move, but the village came together and listened to experts.

"We can also make a decision in the world if the leaders come together," he says. "They should help us, they should pay for our loss and damage."

Fiji / Climate crisis

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • GDP growth drops to 7.1% in FY22, per capita income $2,793
    GDP growth drops to 7.1% in FY22, per capita income $2,793
  • Consumers should pay actual costs to get gas, electricity: PM
    Consumers should pay actual costs to get gas, electricity: PM
  • Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya. Illustration: TBS
    Development won't sustain sans political consensus: Debapriya 

MOST VIEWED

  • People wait for their turn to buy low-priced bun-kabab from a shop in Karachi, Pakistan June 10, 2022. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro
    Pakistan is on the brink: Financial Times
  • Picture: Collected
    IMF combing 'every book, every subsidy' during negotiations: Pak PM
  • Photo: Reuters
    Pakistan's largest oil refinery shuts down
  • Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with a group of girls who reached the age of puberty in Tehran, Iran February 3, 2023. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
    Iran's supreme leader issues pardon for 'tens of thousands' of prisoners
  • Photo: Reuters
    At least 23 dead as dozens of wildfires torch forests in Chile
  • Oil’s New Map: How India turns Russia crude into the west's fuel
    Oil’s New Map: How India turns Russia crude into the west's fuel

Related News

  • 'Rambo' Rabuka returns as Fiji prime minister
  • Fiji military called in to 'help maintain order' after disputed election
  • Fiji in media blackout ahead of national election on Wednesday
  • Crunch UN biodiversity meeting seeks to save 'planet in crisis'
  • COP27 climate summit missed chance for ambition on fossil fuels, critics say

Features

Say it with Colours

Say it with Colours

21h | Mode
Photo: Courtesy

From 'Made in Bangladesh' to 'Designed in Bangladesh'

23h | Panorama
Google must adjust to a world where content is increasingly generated by AI. Photo: Bloomberg

Google will join the AI wars, pitting LaMDA against ChatGPT

20h | Panorama
The megaproject Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant has a debt of Tk90,474 crore. Photo: Courtesy

Projects funded with debt need to be selected prudently, and implemented timely

21h | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

ICB to withdraw Padma Bank Investment as return

ICB to withdraw Padma Bank Investment as return

13h | TBS Insight
Kiara Advani & Sidharth Malhotra's Wedding Update

Kiara Advani & Sidharth Malhotra's Wedding Update

13h | TBS Entertainment
What you probably didn't know about CR7

What you probably didn't know about CR7

11h | TBS SPORTS
US shoots down Chinese spy balloon

US shoots down Chinese spy balloon

12h | TBS World

Most Read

1
Leepu realised his love for cars from a young age and for the last 40 years, he has transformed, designed and customised hundreds of cars. Photo: Collected
Panorama

'I am not crazy about cars anymore': Nizamuddin Awlia Leepu

2
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo
Economy

IMF approves $4.7 billion loan for Bangladesh, calls for ambitious reforms

3
Fund cut as Dhaka's fast-track transit projects on slow spending lane
Infrastructure

Fund cut as Dhaka's fast-track transit projects on slow spending lane

4
Photo: Collected
Court

Japanese mother gets guardianship of daughters, free to leave country

5
Belal Ahmed new acting chairman of SIBL
Banking

Belal Ahmed new acting chairman of SIBL

6
Photo: Collected
Startups

ShopUp secures $30m debt financing to boost expansion, supply chain

EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2023
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net