The rivalry between China and the United States has aroused great interest in the detriment of the climate emergency which weighs on these particularly vulnerable nations.
Le Monde with AFP
At the Pacific Islands Forum (FIP) which opened Tuesday in Suva, capital of the Republic of the Fiji Islands, the countries on the front line against the rise of waters asked on Thursday a global action “urgent and immediate “Against climate change.
The leaders of the Pacific Islands stressed that time was counted to avoid the “worst scenarios” which would see their countries, many of which are just above sea level, engulfed or uninhabitable by storms of more and more violent. “We are on the front line in the face of the harmful effects of climate change”, the leaders recalled in a Common strategic document for 2050 , adopted after three days discussions. They then called for “urgent, robust and transformer action” at all levels, national, regional and global.
Washington promises $ 600 million
The 2022 edition of the Pacific Islands Forum has been the most important for years: climate emergency is becoming more and more pressing for the islands of low altitude, and the forum could not stand during COVID-19’s pandemic. But the summit was marked by geopolitical rivalries in the region, especially between the United States and China.
The vice-president of the United States, Kamala Harris, announced during a video speech that Washington was going to open two new embassies in the Kingdom of Tonga and in the Republic of Kiribati, appoint a regional envoy and inject $ 600 million additional in the region to try to contain the advance of China in this part of the world.
China has not hidden its ambitions in the region, deploying its public enterprises there and exercising there. If Beijing has signed this year a very criticized security agreement with the Solomon Islands, the Prime Minister of this country, Manasseh Sogavare, reassured his island partners by announcing, on the sidelines of the summit, that he would not welcome a military base foreign.
The establishment of such a base would make Solomon Islands “an enemy” of the Pacific and “would make our country and our people potential targets for military strikes,” said Sogavare on RNZ Pacific television .