Six Pacific Island nations have issued a call for a fossil fuel-free Pacific and called on all countries to sign a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty (FFNPT).
“We are appalled by the fossil fuel-driven consequences of the unprecedented two Category 4 cyclones striking Vanuatu within four days,” the governments of Fiji, Tonga, Niue, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, and the Solomon Islands declared at the end of a three-day nmeeting in Port-Vila, Vanuatu.
“This is just the most recent example of the extensive and ongoing fossil fuel-induced loss and damage suffered by the people and communities of the Pacific Islands,” and “the science is clear that fossil fuels are to blame for the climate emergency,” they added. “This is a crisis driven by the greed of an exploitative industry and its enablers. It is not acceptable that countries and companies are still planning on producing more than double the amount of fossil fuels by 2030 than the world can burn to limit warming to 1.5ºC.”
The declaration calls for an “unqualified, global, just, and equitable phaseout of coal, oil, and gas production in line with a global temperature goal of below 1.5ºC.” It commits the six countries to:
• Join the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and urge major oil and gas producers to do the same;
• Lead the creation of a global alliance to negotiate a new FFNPT “to govern the end to fossil fuel expansion, equitable phaseout of fossil fuels, and a global just transition”;
• Seek an advisory opinion on climate change from the International Court of Justice;
• Avoid terminology like “unabated” (for fossil fuel emissions) or “inefficient” (for fossil subsidies) “that creates loopholes for fossil fuel producers and polluters.”
“We need both domestic action and international cooperation to explicitly stop the expansion of fossil fuel emissions and production in order to fulfil the aims of the Paris Agreement,” said Vanuatu Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau. “Transitioning away from an extractive economy provides us with the opportunity to build one that is instead visionary, regenerative, and fruitful.”
