Fiji

Fiji’s Climate Change Act (2021) sets out an ambitious legal framework and includes provisions to regulate and oversee its engagement with international carbon markets. An intention to use voluntary cooperation through markets is outlined in Fiji’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), whereby “Fiji recognises the role of international market-based cooperation in facilitating, expediting and enhancing technology development and transfer, capacity building and access to financial resources to support low carbon and climate resilient efforts.” It notes that “Fiji will explore the potential of bilateral, regional and multilateral market-based cooperation, including in the context of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to support the achievement of its own NDC, and to provide additional mitigation outcomes to support NDC attainment by other countries”.  

The Climate Change Act supports the transparent coordination of emissions reduction projects that will generate ‘Fijian Mitigation Outcome Units’ that will be transferrable under the Article 6 rules of the Paris Agreement. While this legal framework is already in place, there is now opportunity to inform the development of the regulations and processes required to operationalise the relevant section (Part 10) of the Climate Change Act.  

National Carbon Market Strategy Roadmap 

The Office of the Fijian Prime Minister’s Climate Change Division (CCD) has released its National Carbon Market Strategy Roadmap (Strategy Roadmap) to help guide the development of the priorities and objectives that will shape Fiji’s engagement with carbon markets. This has been undertaken through an inclusive national consultative process which recognised the range of carbon market mechanisms, the multitude of stakeholders, and implications of trading mitigation outcomes. 

The Australian Government has supported this initiative. In 2022 it awarded an International Climate Change Engagement grant to the Carbon Market Institute (CMI) to assist with consultations and technical assessments required for the Fijian Government to develop the Strategy Roadmap. CMI has facilitated capacity building and knowledge exchange between the Fijian private, public and NGO sectors, alongside their Australian counterparts.  

In the preparation of the Strategy Roadmap, the CCD has collected and collated stakeholder inputs. In collaboration with CMI, CCD has delivered three workshops and targeted consultations throughout 2023, to ensure maximum participation and diverse input into the process. This has ensured that the Strategy Roadmap has been co-designed with the broad range of stakeholders required to facilitate the production of high-integrity projects, which will in-turn create tradable mitigation outcomes that benefit local communities and ecosystems.  

While the Strategy Roadmap maintains alignment with Fiji’s existing policies and priorities that remain integral to this initiative, the specific outcomes and priorities have been closely informed by the key stakeholders engaged as part of the consultation process. Overall, this collaborative process has supported the dissemination of information, facilitated ownership of the process and outcome, and created the necessary basis needed to seek formal endorsement of the Strategy Roadmap. 

This project has been undertaken through close collaboration with the relevant Ministries, organisations and representative bodies in Fiji.