The Hon. Aupito William Sio has just returned from Europe where he had an audience with Pope Francis and represented New Zealand at COP23, the world’s most important climate change conference. The Māngere electorate MP, who won his seat for the fourth time with another massive majority, is now the Minister for Pacific People and Associate Read more
Fiji has turned a tiny part of Germany into a tropical Pacific island as it leads global negotiations on climate change, and so securing a stage for islanders’ worries about rising sea levels. Fiji is the first small island state to preside at UN climate negotiations since they began in the 1990s. The country’s chief Read more
The Minister for Climate Change James Shaw and Pacific People’s Minister Aupito William Sio met with Pope Francis on Saturday. En route to United Nations COP-23 Climate Change Conference in Bonn, they took part in a Pacific Island Leaders Forum discussion with the Holy Father. The Pope received in audience the leaders of the “Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat” from the eleven island Read more
A group of faith-based organisations in Fiji have come together to draft and promulgate the COP23 Multi-Faith Charter. They have committed themselves to do more to help address the effects of climate change within their own faith communities, as well as make specific calls for increased ambition and action by Parties and non-state actors. The Read more
The opposition party in French Polynesia is ridiculing President Édouard Fritch’s proposed visit to Pope Francis. The comment comes just hours after confirmation that Fritch will join a Pacific Islands Forum delegation to meet Pope Francis at the Vatican next month. The forum coincides with the COP23 climate change conference in Germany. The pro-independence opposition party, Tavini Read more