Posted on 11 May 2023
This week, the 5th Pacific Regional Energy and Transport Ministers’ Meeting (PRETMM) began in Port Vila, bringing together ministers, officials and technical specialists to speak to this years theme “Accelerating decarbonisation in the Blue Pacific.”
The meeting will focus on sustainable, efficient and reliable energy and transport services in the Pacific. This comes following last month’s Call to Action from six Pacific nations who declared their commitment to a fossil fuel free Pacific.
Lavetanalagi Seru, the Regional Coordinator of the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN), said ahead of the meeting, “A new Pacific tailored development pathway based on renewable energy is in the interest of Pacific Island people and communities, who are not only at the forefront of the climate crisis – resulting from the continued production of fossil fuels, but there are also large parts of communities in the Pacific that are facing energy poverty.”
The network is urging governments to make progress at the meeting around decarbonising these resources. "This meeting is an opportunity for the energy and transport ministers in the region to accelerate the efforts for a just, fair, and equitable transition away from fossil fuels,” said Seru.