‘We’re an important voice,’ Parkop tells climate summit
22 September 2019
KEITH JACKSON
NEW YORK – Governor Powes Parkop will today address a United Nations climate action summit which is seeking to mobilise collaboration and investment to accelerate and support climate action to combat global climate change.
The boss of Papua New Guinea's capital will share his experience from Port Moresby and emphasise the serious problems issues that PNG and small island developing nations in the Pacific and elsewhere face with climate change.
Cooperation among all levels of government is imperative to advance policy, technology, knowledge and capacity at the scale and speed necessary to control this existential threat to humanity.
The UN is bringing mayors, governors and local leaders together with ministers and national government representatives,
Governor Parkop will join world leaders and share his vision in a moderated panel discussion.
He will also offer his government’s support for a cooperative initiative on building the climate resilience of the urban poor.
“In Port Moresby, the urban poor are disproportionately harmed by natural disasters,” Governor Parkop said, identifying floods and poor access to basic services as the main challenges.
He said he hopes to bring attention to his Million Trees campaign in Port Moresby and to share with the world what Port Moresby is doing by planting trees, creating green spaces and cleaning plastics from streets and waterways.
“As an elected member of parliament and as the Governor of our capital city, I take the issue of climate change most seriously,” he said.
“What we do today will be harvested by our next generation. They shouldn’t be beneficiaries of our lack of action and we are responsible not only for today but also for the future.
“Our nation is an important voice at the table. While the forests of the Amazon burn, so too are our forests threatened.”
Governor Parkop said he will use his presence at the UN to “share our challenges and the actions we are taking to mitigate them, and to meet and learn from other leaders.”
He said he will “bring home these learnings to inspire the governors of other districts in our country to join me and follow suit.”
Sources: Bloomberg, National Broadcasting Commission
Not enough! I guess Powes Parkop could not do much in a space for a speech that the Environment Conservation and Climate Change Minister would have done on behalf of PNG government.
Which is the announcement on the banning of round log and the stop on extraction industry exploration which should have happened by now.
For Powes Parkop, he should be well positioned now to present urbanisation innovation initiatives his city government has worked on around reducing and maximising water consumption in the city, waste recycle, green infrastructure on building and construction especially with concrete that emit a lot of carbon dioxide, transport and city certification of forest trees.
I guess - like the 16-year old Swedish climate activist Greta Thurnberg said - politicians are not mature enough on the subject of climate change.
Posted by: Steven Magil | 27 September 2019 at 09:02 AM
As Governor Powes Parkop puts it, “In Port Moresby, the urban poor are disproportionately harmed”.
Yet his wording of ‘floods’ and ‘climate’ into “resilience of the urban poor” seems more about the Governor’s intent to “meet and learn from other leaders” about a different topic.
That said, credit is due to him and all PNG political operatives where they might be effective in tackling the enormity of rubbish waste in PNG’s NCD and beyond, and the PNG health disaster that comes with a four-letter word ‘buai’.
Posted by: Lindsay F Bond | 26 September 2019 at 07:57 AM
Interesting that Parkop gets a lot of flack from people for doing things like planting trees, cleaning up waste and promoting yoga (ok I know there were questions about the contracting in the latter case), but really those activities would seem to be quite healthy for people and the environment.
Posted by: Johnny Blades | 25 September 2019 at 07:50 AM
The entire Green New Deal is yet another US corporate scam to generate opportunity out of adversity and fulfill John D. Rockefeller's maxim to "buy when blood is running through the streets".
The corporate lobbyists and charlatans will be selling their snake oil and the lyrics from Leonard Cohen resonate:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded,
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed, the poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes, everybody knows
Posted by: Bernard Corden | 22 September 2019 at 09:17 PM
What? It is the minister for Environment, Conservation and Climate Change Hon Geoffrey Kama supposed to dress this international climate change forum and not Powes Parkop. It doesn't add up.
Posted by: Francis Nii | 22 September 2019 at 07:03 PM