President Hilda Heine praised California Governor Jerry Brown for sponsoring a major climate conference last week in San Francisco. “Thank you for the ‘Call to Action’ outcome from this Summit on behalf of a grateful nation,” Heine said after participating in the event. “Your ‘Call to Action’ means everything to my country, and to other vulnerable countries of the world, because it can help protect our future. But ultimately it will also help all of our futures because nobody will be immune from the worst impacts that are to come. We are all vulnerable.”
Heine said the world is out of time. “If we do not increase global ambition by 2020, then we will not be able to stay within the 1.5 degrees temperature limit we agreed on in Paris,” she said. “The world is on the edge of unleashing a catastrophic climate crisis of our own making. My country is on the front line of the fight and we have nowhere to retreat.”
Referring to last week’s Global Climate Action Summit in California, Heine said the conference showed the world needs every country to raise their ambition, “but we also need every city, every state, every company and every citizen to do the same – and today I have seen and heard that you are prepared to help lead in that effort. I want to say that my country hears you, those committed to ambition hear you, and the rest of the world will surely hear you.”
“On November 22, I will convene a ground-breaking Virtual Climate Summit as part of the Marshall Islands’ Presidency of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, an alliance of almost 50 developing countries,” she said.
The November 22 summit will be zero carbon and held entirely online, Heine added. She invited last week’s summit participants to participate by submitting a statement, and encouraging their governments to express their support.
Read more about this in the September 21, 2018 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.