Page 35 - IB June 2017

Climate Change
Kiribati leads the way

Kiribati President Taneti Maamau addresses the UNited Nationa Conference on diasaster risk management inMexico last month. Photo: Samisoni Pareti
will be repaid when climate or adaptation Fund.
financing are available. We currently earn Fiji for example got approval for a
about 6 per cent return on our invest- $USD222 million urban water supply
ment,” said President Maamau. and wastewater management project. Ap-
“We are also looking at private financing proval was given by the board of the GCF
for our adaptation and mitigation mea- in November 2015, but zero money has
sures. The Pacific Rising Initiative of the been disbursed to date. This was also true
Coalition of Atoll Nations Against Climate for other Pacific island nations like Samoa,
by Samisoni Pareti Change (CANCC) is a public private part- Tonga and the Cook Islands.
nership aimed at securing and mobilising What exactly was the current balance of
IN what could best labelled as an out private capital for climate change adapta- his country’s trust fund President Maamau
-of-the-box idea, Kiribati says it won’t tion and mitigation. did not disclose at the UN conference in
sit around waiting for global funds but The i-Kiribati leader said the loans Mexico, except to say that it was giving
would instead use its own money to fund would finance the reconstruction and his government a return of around 6 per
climate change adaptation works on the repairs of roads, seawalls, jetties and cent. Responding to a question from this
atoll nation. airfields on the outer islands of Kiribati. magazine, Maamau had said the amount
Island president Taneti Maamau un- Desalination plants would also be acquired was “not much.”
veiled his administration’s climate finance to provide clean, fresh water. An Asian Development Bank pa-
plans at a United Nations conference on Kiribati’s finance bridging plan was a per however valued Kiribati’s funds at
disaster risk reduction in Mexico last far cry from plans of the other members $US497 million in 2013.
month. Key to the funding plan is sourc- of the small island developing states, or This, it said, represented 381 per cent
ing concessionary bank loans with the SIDS. Most of these countries are relying of Kiribati’s GDP. With growing revenue
island’s healthy trust funds to be put up sorely on global funding under the United from its large tuna fishery, this fund many
as collateral. Nations Framework on the Climate Change believed continued to grow. Kiribati calls
“Ideally, government will be looking at Convention, the UNFCCC. Quite a number its trust fund the Revenue Equalization
concessional debt financing with an inter- have got approval from funds like the Reserve Fund, RERF.
est rate of 1 per cent to 2 per cent which Green Climate Fund or the Adaptation n Continued overleaf

Islands Business, May 2017 35