A LOCAL priest from Malaita Outer Island will attend the 2015 Paris Climate Conference in France from November 30 to December 11.
Fr Nigel Francis Kelaepa is travelling with another priest, Keith Joseph from Australia.
According to Fr Joseph, they were invited due their work on Climate Change Adaptation Projects with the Anglican Church of Melanesia in 2009.
“I think this was the first Climate Change projects ever done in Solomon Islands,” he said.
“We have received some funding for our journey, but we will not be travelling or living in any sort of luxury.
“Definitely no business class fares or five star hotels!” Fr Jospeh posted on social media.
He said it is important that Ontong Java and the other threatened places in the Solomon Islands are represented.
“I suspect that very few of the places that are directly threatened (like Ontong Java or the Reef Islands) will have representatives in Paris, so it is very good that Fr Nigel can go to represent his people, even though he has no support from Government or Church in SI,” he said.
The Paris Climate Conference also known as the Conference of Parties (COP) 21 will, for the first time in over 20 years of United Nations negotiations, aim to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.
By EDDIE OSIFELO
