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Climate change Politics Pacific MPs in NZ Cabinet P8
Media Salute to fallen journo P12

WOMEN SPORTS Islands Business

Who

pays for

climate

change

The eroding coastline at Vunidogoloa. Photo: Invictus
By Netani Rika ... He says that is a notion of green bonds make no change
Half a world away in Vunidogoloa, the
DUST collects on the floor of the village ‘ two-faced village to the way village leader Sailosi Ramatu
shop. goes about his daily duties.
The door is locked, the windows shut leader. We paid A large billboard on the gravelled road
tight and a collection of guttering, plastic which runs past the village proclaims
pipes, nuts bolts, screws and nails are the new settlement to be the work of a
piled on the counter and the shelves. voted for SODELPA number of government departments and
Outside the shop, grass has overgrown United Nations agencies.
...
the cement culverts and drains which relocation and he ‘ But at one end of Kenani (the Fijian
arrived over two years ago and are too translation of the Biblical Promised land
heavy for the villagers to lift without of Canaan) two fish ponds are evidence
the necessary machinery or lay without Fiji and the World Bank, Fiji’s bonds will of what is work in progress or a project
engineering expertise. be available in five- and 13-year maturi- forgotten.
This is Vunidogoloa Village in ties from November 1and pay coupons “We were told there would be four fish
Cakaudrove, the poster child for Fiji’s of four per cent and 6.3 per cent. ponds but nobody seems to know any-
climate change relocation initiative. In Bonn, Bainimarama stood as Presi- thing about it when we visit government
Last month Fiji’s military strongman- dent of COP23 and proclaimed the bond departments,” Ramatu said.
turned climate change champion, Com- would earmark cash to address the issue “Fisheries, agriculture, rural develop-
modore Frank Bainimarama told the of climate change and global warming. ment, climate change – nobody answers
United Nations his nation would issue “Changing weather patterns and our questions about when the project will
a US$50 million “green” bond in com- severe weather events are threatening be completed.”
ing weeks to help combat the effects of our development, our security and the Vunidogoloa was relocated to Kenani
global climate change, the first develop- Fijian way of life,” he said in a joint in 2014, two years after it made head-
ing country to do so. statement with the World Bank three lines as the first Fijian community to be
Lauded by economists and climate weeks before Bonn. moved due to coastal erosion caused by
change advocates, this financial in- “By issuing the first emerging country climate change.
genuity is expected to take the global green bond, we are also sending a clear
green bond market to an estimated signal to other nations that we can be Continued Page 21
US$134.9million this year. creative and innovative in mobilising web link:
According to a summary released by funds.” www.islandsbusiness.com

Islands Business, November 2017 5