Green Party spokesperson for Pacific Peoples Teanau Tuiono MP, supports the demand from Pasifika communities fighting for climate action as their homelands are more at risk in the Pacific region.

“Like the seas rising around the Pacific I also rise to make this call. A call to acknowledge the leadership of our young people who are also rising and mobilising around the School Strikes for Climate today”, says Green MP and spokesperson for Pacific Peoples Teanau Tuiono.

“Pacific Island countries have contributed almost nothing to the causes of the climate crises yet are being hit first and hardest by its impacts. The severe injustice of the climate crisis in the Pacific has been matched and only by the determination of Pacific leaders and peoples to lead the world to a more just and sustainable future.

“We need to commit to climate action in Aotearoa to limit global warning to 1.5C but we also need to ensure our immigration policy is welcoming to Pasifika peoples becoming displaced by climate change. Because while we roll out vaccines for COVID-19 unfortunately there is no vaccine for climate change when countries and families will be left with no home.

“We are a country that must account for its emissions, but we need to think about that in the context of the region that we live in. We live in the Pacific, not Europe, not America. The place on the planet that is most vulnerable to the climate crisis.

“Climate action means we all play a part – He Waka Eke Noa; a waka we are all a part of. This also means that we are on the Waka and it is important we steer this waka together”.

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