'Extinction' in 10 years for Pacific islands, Samoan climate activist warns
1 November 2021, 22:05 | Updated: 2 November 2021, 17:51
Climate activist believes citizens hold key to climate action
This activist says whilst some low-lying pacific islands face extinction within the decade due to climate change, they 'won't be the last' to be affected.
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Brianna Fruean joined Iain Dale after speaking at the COP26 summit in Glasgow. She told LBC that her speech outlined how people in her home region "have to live with the consequences of inaction" from large polluting countries.
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"I'm from a region that contributes the least but feels the impact the most."
The Samoan climate activist, who has been attending COP since she was 10, told Iain that Samoa is facing "extinction" in a worst case climate scenario.
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"Whilst we'll be the first to experience it, we certainly won't be the last."
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"How soon are we talking here?" Iain wondered. Ms Fruean referenced the IPCC report which details the impact some nations will feel if the global temperature rises by the 1.5C tipping point.
Based off the findings of the report, Ms Fruean said there is "about a decade" until Pacific islands such as Tuvalu are underwater.
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"That is the beginning of forced climate displacement" she warned, noting that Samoa would follow shortly after.
Quizzed on whether she was confident there would be a solution found at COP26, she said that she didn't have faith "necessarily in the COP process but the voices that are coming from the outside".
"The more that leaders in COP try deflect from action, the more that civil society...will keep pushing them until they know that they finally have to take action."
