Prime Minister Hon. James Marape has commended American President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on their latest stand on Climate Change mitigation, made at the APEC Leaders’ Summit in San Francisco this week.

Prime Minister Marape commended the two most prominent leaders of APEC for their firm commitment to migrate from heavy fossil fuel to clean green energy and net zero emissions by 2050.

He said, “I commend President Biden and President Xi for this remarkable step they have taken. They have made a firm commitment to migrate from heavy fossil fuel to clean green energy and a net zero emission by 2050. This is a big commitment, especially for their countries, which depend heavily on the use of fossil fuels.

“Both the United States and China are big carbon emitters with huge environmental footprints, so for them to commit to aggressively shift away from fossil fuel use and extraction is a highly commendable.”

The Prime Minister once more called for access to fair trade among all economies of APEC as a means to combating poverty and the unsustainable use of resources.

“If it wasn’t for industrialization, which has unfortunately become the cause of pollution in the last 100 years and ultimately become the main issue we now face in Climate Change, poverty would have forced the unsustainable plunder of Earth’s resources.

“This is why it is imperative that APEC must ensure that all member countries prosper through fair trade.”

In the area of forest conservation in relation to Climate Change, PM Marape continued to market PNG as a ‘forest nation’, as he did to APEC leaders and at some of his side meetings.

“Climate Change conversations will not be complete without conversations on forests and forestry management. The mitigation efforts must be clearly progressed. The mitigation efforts must be clearly progressed,” he said.