Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary UNFCCC

The UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn is the next step for governments to implement the Paris Climate Change Agreement and accelerate the transformation to sustainable, resilient and climate-safe development. The Paris Agreement entered into force last November and the era of implementation has begun. This conference will further clarify the enabling frameworks that will make the agreement fully operational and the support needed for all nations to achieve their climate change goals. COP 23 – which will be presided over by the Government of Fiji with support by Germany – is also an excellent example of the cooperation and collaboration between nations that will truly meet the global climate change challenge. This meeting is incredibly important.

I encourage governments to come to COP 23 ready to work together to accelerate implementation and take the crucial next steps towards transformative change. I also encourage public and private sector leaders and every citizen to follow what happens at this year’s conference on our website and on social media to understand how to take action. To meet the climate change and sustainable development challenge, everyone must be empowered to contribute. We all have a role to play, and COP 23 will shine a light on both action underway and the many possible actions every individual and institution can take moving forward."

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H. E. Mr. Frank Bainimaram, Prime Minister of Fiji

"As President of COP23, I have made a solemn obligation to move the international community to decisive action to address the underlying causes of global climate change. The Conferences of the Parties are the vehicles to achieve this, and so we must seize the opportunities that each conference gives us to review the latest science on climate change, gauge the world’s progress, and agree on appropriate rules, procedures and mechanisms to confront all of the challenges posed by our warming planet.

The Paris Agreement calls for concerted action to hold the increase in global average temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels. But scientific research is revealing more about climate change each year, and we now know that change is occurring at a faster rate than we believed when the Paris Agreement was forged. That means that we must embrace the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at the latest.

People in many parts of the world are already living with the first serious consequences of global warming. For the most vulnerable countries, including small island developing states in the Pacific and elsewhere, the need for action is real and immediate. We see an urgent need to mobilize international investment to fund the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for vulnerable developing states. And the global community must also must address the need to finance adaptation and to increase private-sector support for adaptation and mitigation actions, including insurance. And we must accelerate the

Our meeting in Bonn comes at a time when it is no longer sufficient to maintain the momentum. It is my intention to make COP23 Fiji in Bonn the occasion when we accelerated the pace of positive change and acted more boldly than we thought possible.

I call on governments at all levels, NGOs, the scientific community, the business community, labour organisations and all of civil society to join me in a grand coalition to save our Earth and the people and other living things that call it home."

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