Statement by UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell following her trip to Vanuatu and Fiji

SUVA, Fiji, 19 July 2024 – “Pacific Island nations are collectively responsible for less than one-tenth of one per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions that are warming our planet. Yet these countries, and their children, including in Vanuatu and Fiji which I visited this week, are on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

“In Vanuatu, I met 15-year-old Camilla, one of many young people across the Pacific and around the world who are taking action to protect their future from rising sea levels, stronger and more frequent storms and hotter temperatures. ‘Our journey is like taking a canoe,” she told me. ‘We want to get everyone on board.’

“But she knows that today, not everyone is on board. The world – and world leaders in particular – must listen, and step up global efforts to significantly reduce emissions, mitigate risks and build the resilience communities so desperately need.

“On Nguna, one of Vanuatu’s many islands, I met a head teacher named Rossie who showed me the destroyed school where she used to teach until it was wiped out by back-to back cyclones in March 2023. A new school is nearly finished, built further inland and with a stronger structure. But Rossie, 36, who has lived on the island her whole life, told me that climate change is already upending lives here. ‘It affects everything,’ she said, explaining that rising seawaters and changing weather patterns are killing crops. ‘Some of the students don’t have food. Before we all had enough to eat,’ she said.

“Climate hazards are forcing some of Vanuatu’s children to move because of more frequent and intense storms, and warmer oceans are eroding coral reefs and fishing stocks, damaging livelihoods and culture. An entire generation of people living in Vanuatu and other Pacific nations are looking at the very real possibility of being forced from their homes.

“In Fiji, the situation is much the same. Officials and young people I spoke to there expressed the very same worries about what the climate crisis will do to their lives, especially it amplifies other issues such as poverty and extremely high levels of violence against children.

“All of the Pacific’s more than 1.2 million children are impacted by the climate crisis, affecting the health, well-being, and very survival of children. With emissions targets to curb global warming wildly off track and funding for disaster risk reduction and adaptation woefully lacking, their futures are largely reliant on decision-makers in larger, wealthier countries who continue to drag their feet.

“In response, UNICEF is calling on all countries to commit to better protecting children in their national climate action plans, and to investing the resources necessary to turn those plans into reality.

“But quite frankly, the current climate commitments fail children. They fail because they do not address the unique and disproportionate impacts of climate change on children. They do not adequately strengthen the services children rely on – such as health, education, justice and food systems. They are not inclusive of all children and young people’s rights and roles as stakeholders and drivers of change. We need more bold and innovative steps.

”In the Pacific, UNICEF has deployed an innovative finance solution with the Today and Tomorrow initiative, the world’s first integrated climate and disaster risk finance mechanism specifically targeted at and designed for children. Today and Tomorrow enables us to protect up to 14 million children and families against tropical cyclones in eight countries over three years, including in Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. Since commencing, the pilot has released over US$ 4.5 million in parametric insurance payouts including over US$ 380,000 in payouts triggered by six cyclones across the three Pacific Island countries.

“It is time decision-makers fully commit to taking action and for child-sensitive climate finance to be radically increased. Governments can leave the best possible legacy by investing in the bold, child-focused climate action that children and future generations so desperately needs. As Camilla reminded us: ‘It is not too late. We just need the world to get onboard.’

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