Not a Cent of Climate Finance is Flowing to Fiji’s Farmers—This Injustice Must End, Minister Singh to COP29

The Minister for Multi-Ethnic Affairs and Sugar Industry, Hon. Charan Jeath Singh, did not mince his words while delivering his speech at the side event, calling for a transformation in global climate finance to ensure vulnerable communities receive urgent support, especially sugarcane farmers in Fiji.

In his remarks during the session titled “Beyond Big Banks: Financing Decentralized Climate Solutions to the Global South,” Minister Singh outlined the blunt reality faced by Fijian sugar cane farmers and rural communities who continue to bear the brunt of climate change impacts without any access to climate finance.

Minister Singh, in his address, reiterated that despite Fiji being one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in the world, not a single sugar cane farmer in Fiji has directly accessed a cent from any pool of climate finance.

“Not a single farmer in Fiji who has lost his or her sugarcane to a flood or a cyclone has been able to walk into a financial institution, present a proposal to fund farm-level recovery, adaptation, and resilience building, and secure funding for it. Not one,” he said.

He emphasized that the gap between the global commitments made in forums like COP and the lived experiences of farmers in rural Fiji is a gap of trust, commitment, and political will. He further urged the global community to rethink its approach to climate finance and outlined key principles that must guide the flow of climate finance to vulnerable communities, which are climate finance with Dignity, Respect and purpose.

Minister Singh further called the international communities to take bold action to ensure that decentralized climate finance flows directly to those in need, alluding that Climate finance with respect and dignity is surely not too big an ask of the international community.