The Samoa High Commissioner & Dean of the Diplomatic Corps participated at the Climate Change + Business Conference 2020 in Auckland on 11 & 12 November. More than 400 participants attended from different sectors including government, academic, business and civil society. According to the organisers, “The global Covid-19 pandemic will define 2020 as the year the world locked down. In this period of reflection, most people agreed that they didn’t want things to return to normal when we re-emerged from lockdown. That this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to chart a course for a kinder, more equitable, greener future. To exist within, not beyond, planetary boundaries and to rapidly accelerate the decarbonisation of the planet. The 2020 Climate Change + Business Conference will explore the extent to which businesses, policy-makers, and civil society have seized the opportunity to transform our future.” Several prominent people spoke at the Conference including the Global Leader on climate change and the 2020 Hilary Laureate (Ms Christiana Figueres) who addressed the Conference via-zoom as well as the New Zealand Minister for Climate Change (Hon James Shaw). The Samoa High Commissioner was on a Panel, together with the Ambassadors of the Netherlands and the EU as well as the Deputy Head of the Japanese Embassy. In his intervention, the High Commissioner reiterated the real and serious effects of Climate Change on the Island Countries as well as the measures taken by the Pacific Region and Samoa to try and reduce the adverse effects (of climate change) on the Island countries and peoples.

A copy of the High Commissioner's speech can be viewed here.