On the eve of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is expected to deliver a scientific "final warning" on the climate emergency, Fiame Naomi Mata'afa, Samoa's prime minister, issued a desperate plea for action.
"We're all impacted, but the degree of the impact is in the particular circumstance of countries. [In] our low-lying atoll countries, it's right there; we're living with it," she said. "[In the Pacific there are] communities, whole communities, that have relocated to different countries."
Mata'afa warned that all countries would face escalating damage unless they acted now. "This is a collective issue: no one is free from the impacts of climate change," she said in an interview with the Guardian. "So it's very important for the global family to hold to determinations [to cut greenhouse gas emissions] that have already been made. It seems more immediate for us [in the Pacific] but it's still impacting all of us."
This story is from the March 20, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the March 20, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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