We continue our travel to COP29, the “Finance Cop,” in Baku, Azerbaijan. By land, by sea, by air, we move onward to the conference for arrival by Monday, November 11, 2024. Please join California Interfaith Power & Light for the journey.
Our first stop? Fiji.
Fiji is responding to climate change and the related financial challenges in creative ways. Their Climate Change Portal has a wealth of information about some of these challenges. There is much to learn in Fiji.
Our guide is The Rt. Honorable Baroness Patricia Scotland KC, Secretary-General of The Commonwealth Secretariat. She focused on Fiji at the June 27, 2024 Climate Innovation Forum in London.
(The Rt. Honorable Baroness Patricia Scotland KC, Secretary-General The Commonwealth Secretariat)
(Her inspiring session was “Mission 1.5C: We Can And We Must!”)
Fiji is one of fifty-six Commonwealth countries, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire that are now nation states within The Commonwealth. Fully twenty-five of those fifty-six are island nation states. Fiji is one of the twenty-five.
Fiji is an archipelago of more than three hundred islands in the South Pacific Ocean. The islands have recorded a 0.2 inch increase in the sea level per year, so are vulnerable to rising sea levels, coastal erosion, bleaching of corals and extreme weather. These lead to a loss of biodiversity impacting livelihoods and food security. Fiji is even one of the first countries in the world to have a policy to address “climate induced displacement and human mobility.” (Quick Facts – Climate Vulnerable Communities).
Secretary-General Scotland noted: “Fiji is struggling with sea level rise. And we knew that it was really important for us to be able to help Fiji with a nature-based sea wall.” (June 27, 2024 Climate Action Forum). The challenges for the Commonwealth were how to assist Fijians to design the nature-based sea wall and how to support the funding of its construction. The Secretary-General explained that: “But it’s not just Fiji, because the twenty-five small island developing states probably need a sea wall.” So, the greater mission was to create “a template to replicate what our members need.” (Forum).
I. The Design
The basic design of Fiji’s nature-based sea wall incorporates local rocks, vetiver grass roots that network into the boulders to firm them up, soapstone, clay soil and engineered crevices “where species of plants and animals can thrive,” as well as mangrove systems surrounding the wall.
Joshua Wycliffe, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Environment in Fiji, speaks about the construction and value of the Fijian sea wall template here:
(Nature-based sea wall in Macuata, Vanua Levu, which combines mangroves, boulders, soap stone, clay soil and vetiver grass.)
(Vetiver grass functioning as one component in a Nature Based Sea Wall)
II. The Climate Finance
So, how is all this financed? The climate finance supporting the nature-based sea wall in Fiji provides an illustration of the power of financial collaboration. It may be a useful model to study as we scale up for COP29, the international “Finance COP.” Let’s look at some of the interconnecting parts.
A. The International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature facilitated the funding of the nature-based sea walls project in Fiji. Created in 1948, IUCN is a membership composed of governmental and civil society organizations to harness “the experiences, resources and reach of its more than 1,400 member organizations and the input of approximately 16,000 experts.”
B. The Kiwa Initiative
(The Kiwa Initiative Team)
The Fiji Ministry of Waterways signed an agreement with IUCN to administer a Kiwa Initiative grant in the amount of $354,971.70. The grant was to rehabilitate six project sites in Fiji by constructing nature-friendly climate adaptation structures, the nature-based sea walls.
“Coastal flooding, riverbank erosion, and sedimentation are some of the pressing climate change impacts faced by Fiji. Through this Kiwa Initiative grant, the Ministry of Waterways will seek to deliver impact at scale by addressing key underlying drivers of climate change and coastal erosion.”
The Kiwa Initiative is a multi-donor collaboration. It was launched in March of 2020 to address climate change adaptation in the Pacific through the “preservation, promotion and restoration of biodiversity” with nature-based solutions. Kiwa’s beneficiaries are at all scales – local, national and regional. In addition to funds, grantees receive technical support for project development.
The current endowment is approximately $82,000,000 US, which is managed by the Agence Française de Développement. Kiwa receives the funds from:
- Pacific Island Countries and Territories,
- Regional Non-Governmental Organizations
- The European Union
- France
- Canada
- Australia
- New Zealand
- And others.
C. The Adaptation Fund.
On April 19, 2024, the Adaptation Fund granted Fiji’s Ministry of Waterways $5,707,100.00 US for coastal management, including the nature-based sea wall project.
The Adaptation Fund was established in 2001 to finance adaptation projects and programs in developing countries. It began functioning in 2007 with trustee services from The World Bank. Contributors include numerous national and sub-national governments as well as the European Union.
The Adaptation Fund arose from deliberations at prior COPs and should be part of the agenda for COP29 negotiation sessions in Baku later this year. The Fund has become an important source for climate finance:
“With over $ 1.1 billion US allocated, the Adaptation Fund gives developing countries full ownership of adaptation projects, from planning through implementation, while ensuring monitoring and transparency at every step.”
D. The Asian Development Bank.
The Asian Development Bank provided assistance to Fiji for the design of nature-based sea walls. For more information about ADB’s contribution.
“ADB assists its members, and partners, by providing loans, technical assistance, grants, and equity investments to promote social and economic development.
[It] maximizes the development impact of its assistance by facilitating policy dialogues, providing advisory services, and mobilizing financial resources through co-financing operations that tap official, commercial, and export credit sources.”
Members include regional and non-regional member nation states, such as the United States. The membership is listed here.
E. Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme.
The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme facilitates access to finance.
“Increasing the access to climate change finance is a high priority for Pacific island Members and SPREP will support Members through its role as an accredited entity to the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund and through other sources. As a Regional Implementing Entity for the Adaptation Fund, Green Climate Fund and via other financing mechanisms, SPREP is able to maximize access to and leverage climate finance for Members.”
SPREP has twenty-six members scattered over thousands of miles of ocean. Members share common elements of culture, history and environment. They include fourteen Pacific Island nations, seven territories and five metropolitan countries with a direct interest in the Pacific region.
Member countries and territories include: American Samoa, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Northern Marianas, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Wallis & Futuna and the five metropolitan countries of Australia, France, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States.
For more information about SPREP and nature-based solutions in response to climate change impact in the Pacific.
III. Scaling Up For COP29.
Our visit to Fiji has been productive. We have learned about their creative design for nature-based sea walls to respond to climate change and we have explored some of the interconnected programs to finance the creation of those protective barriers.
As we continue on toward Baku, let’s ponder how we might scale up to meet the international demands beyond Fiji. What are the projects that will need funding? Where are the financial resources to provide the funds? How might we facilitate the flow of those funds from various sources to the parts of the world where they are needed most?
All the while, let’s remember the closing comments of Baroness Patricia Scotland, Secretary-General of The Commonwealth Secretariat at the June 27, 2024 Climate Action Forum:
“And I think that we have to recognize that each and every one of us has a choice. And we need to choose to act and we have to act now and we have to act together. Because 1.5 will only stay alive if we work with all our heart, with all our power and we work now.
We need to be clear, we are jointly, severally on one indictment. And we are all severally charged with saving our world. We are the first generation to really suffer the apparent consequences of climate change, but we are the last to be able to do anything about it. I intend to plead not guilty. I hope you do, too.” (Forum).
(The author at the June 27, 2024 Climate Action Forum).
Guest Post: A Trek to COP29 by Amy Quirk