PIF Suva, March 23, 2022—Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Henry Puna is on the Blue Pacific’s climate campaign trail, flying to bilateral meetings in the wings of the Dubai Expo closing days, and sealing a major climate resilience advocacy MOU partnership with FIFA in Doha, Qatar.
The FIFA partnership comes after months of talks with the global football sporting body, with a focus on leveraging FIFA’s global network and outreach to advocate the urgency to act with ambition to address the climate code red and mobilise financing to climate proof football infrastructure development in the Pacific. This builds on the notion that a healthy climate correlates to human and sports health, and FIFA's Sustainability campaign and November 2021 launch of a Climate Strategy to achieve net zero across FIFA events by 2040.
Pacific nations attending the Oceania FIFA qualifiers in Doha are expected to be part of the formal MOU signing event, scheduled for April 1 as part of a Congress meeting of global-Oceania FIFA officials.
While in Qatar, SG Puna will also meet with H.E Mr Bader bin Omar Al-Dafa, Special Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Climate Change and Sustainability to mobilise support for the Pacific Resilience Facility.
Promoting climate change and resilience as critical priorities for the Pacific are a touchpoint of engagement with the host of the 2022 FIFA ‘green’ World Cup, Qatar. Qatar is also set to host a major meeting for LDCs in 2023.
En-route to Qatar, SG Puna will be amongst Forum officials supporting the Pacific Trade and Investment Geneva team’s events in Dubai later this week. The PIF team are amongst other Pacific delegations heading to UAE for the closing days of their national and Pacific pavilions at the World Expo 2020, deferred to 2021 due to the pandemic. --ENDS
