The youth and children of Samoa have called for urgent action from the government to deal with climate change and environmental issues as they prepare to become the future custodians.

Children and youth convened a meeting at the Taumeasina Island Resort on Thursday with climate action partners including community leaders, and the private sector to share experiences and views on how Samoa can upscale and advance efforts to combat the impacts of climate change.

It also served as Samoa’s preparations towards the upcoming COP 28 [Conference of Parties Climate Conference] in Dubai later this month.

A platform was provided for a panel of young children, youth and university students to share their experiences and solutions on climate-related issues.

Scarlet Pau, 11, of Tafaigata is very vocal about taking care of the environment as they will be the next to inherit it.

She said she has seen others suffer because of climate change and is praying that something is urgently done to address the issue.

“I am here to explain climate change because it is such a big thing for us," said Ms Pau. "I’ve seen how other families experience climate change and it felt pretty scary and made me thankful that I was safe for now.

“Samoa has a lot of room to plant and we can be safe but we also have so many cars putting gases into our atmosphere adding to global warming.” 

One of the youth representatives is set to travel to Dubai to attend the COP28 conference. Marinda Tagiilima Leiataua, 20, of Magiagi studied environmental sociology at the university and when the opportunity presented itself to her to fly to Canada for COP15, she took it at that time.

“I am looking forward to hearing what our government stand is and which is what I will also be standing for. I hope everything goes well and that we do get some funding,” she said. “The solution is to adapt. There are a lot of talks about reversing the climate effects within a given timeframe of 10 years. 

"You cannot offset climate effects in 10 years and that is why we are advocating for building resilience as it is the only thing that we can do.

“It is very unfair and unjust but we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do. If we don’t do it, no one else is going to do it so building a very resilient Pacific is very important.”