Gail Alexan­der

There were strong, sin­cere state­ments and lamen­ta­tions for Ton­ga, which has been se­vere­ly hit by cli­mate change.

That was how con­tri­bu­tions from vis­it­ing Com­mon­wealth Youth Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans flowed in Tues­day’s de­bate, where Ton­ga’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kil­isiti­na Moala took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­liv­er a weep­ing lament that her home­land was sink­ing.

The CYP de­bate in Par­lia­ment on a pro­posed law for Re­mote Work­place op­er­a­tions was sus­pend­ed for sev­er­al min­utes af­ter Moala broke in­to tears.

When pro­ceed­ings re­sumed, she be­gan speak­ing but al­so con­tin­ued weep­ing as she spoke of her be­lea­guered home­land.

All CYP speak­ers rose and ap­plaud­ed Moala af­ter she con­clud­ed in tears, say­ing, “To all lead­ers lis­ten­ing in, be mind­ful of all de­ci­sion-mak­ing. Al­ways put in mind to small is­land na­tions who are suf­fer­ing the enor­mous con­se­quences of cli­mate change ... our choic­es to­day de­ter­mine the out­come of to­mor­row - thank you.”

The dra­mat­ic de­vel­op­ment oc­curred dur­ing day two of the three-day CYP held by the Com­mon­wealth Par­lia­men­tary As­so­ci­a­tion. T&T is host­ing the event for CYP del­e­gates from most of the Com­mon­wealth’s 56 mem­ber coun­tries.

The for­eign CYP at­ten­dees rep­re­sent­ing the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion spoke in yes­ter­day’s de­bate on the bill for the fic­tion­al coun­try of “Kairi and Cha­co­nia.”

Act­ing as House Speak­er, T&T Op­po­si­tion MP Ani­ta Haynes didn’t have cause to “rein in” speak­ers de­spite some en­er­getic con­tri­bu­tions.

How­ev­er, Haynes sus­pend­ed pro­ceed­ings briefly when gov­ern­ment speak­er Moala be­came over­come with emo­tion dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion. She’d start­ed strong­ly, not­ing the en­vi­ron­men­tal ap­proach and the bill’s po­ten­tial to fight cli­mate change due to peo­ple work­ing at home, trav­el­ling less and re­duc­ing glob­al emis­sions. She al­so cit­ed the re­cent COP27 event pro­vid­ing cli­mate change so­lu­tions.

Moala said the Op­po­si­tion’s de­ci­sion-mak­ing led to the enor­mous ef­fects of cli­mate change.

Then she added, “I would like to ref­er­ence the king­dom of Ton­ga and the Pa­cif­ic is­land na­tions ...(who are).”

Pick­ing up a hand­ker­chief and dab­bing her eyes, she con­tin­ued, “Prone and stands vul­ner­a­ble ... to cli­mate change.”

There was ap­plause from the Op­po­si­tion, then from the Gov­ern­ment, which sought an ex­ten­sion of her speak­ing time. All agreed. But Moala could be heard gasp­ing and cry­ing as she at­tempt­ed to con­tin­ue. Haynes then an­nounced the sus­pen­sion.

Af­ter pro­ceed­ings re­sumed, Moala re­peat­ed, “I want to ref­er­ence the king­dom of Ton­ga and the Pa­cif­ic Is­land na­tions who are prone and stand vul­ner­a­ble to cli­mate change...”

“And as the on­ly Pa­cif­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tive here,” she added, dab­bing her eyes, she added, “Sor­ry...ex­cuse me.”

Moala made a plea to all lead­ers present or who were join­ing the gath­er­ing spir­i­tu­al­ly.

“On be­half of all is­land na­tions of the Pa­cif­ic, the peo­ple are on­ly re­spon­si­ble for 0.3 per cent (pause) but the most vul­ner­a­ble to cli­mate change and glob­al warm­ing and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.”

There was desk-thump­ing sup­port for her.

Moala con­tin­ued with tears, “Here is my voice...and let it echo (voice full of tears) we are suf­fer­ing, we are sink­ing (tears) - we are sink­ing. The land that my fu­ture lies on is sink­ing...”

Con­tin­u­ing in a voice full of tears, Moala added, “I will not live any life, I would not live my life to see our beau­ti­ful is­lands be­ing lost to the sea. With­in these is­lands lies our fu­ture and I won’t rest my case and I will con­tin­ue to use any plat­forms and any op­por­tu­ni­ty to let my voice be heard.”

Moala al­so point­ed to state­ments made by speak­ers at Mon­day’s CYP launch, “to let youth speak and youths are the fu­ture, the fu­ture is to­day and youths are change agents.”

Af­ter long unan­i­mous ap­plause for Moala, the next speak­er, Op­po­si­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bet­san An­gell Roberts (Wales), said they ap­pre­ci­at­ed Moala’s pas­sion. The next gov­ern­ment speak­er, Ben­jamin Ba­ha­monde-Wastavi­no (Falk­land Is­lands) al­so said Moala’s words moved him and he was sure it moved all in the Cham­ber. Gov­ern­ment speak­er Judy Kipru­to (Kenya) ref­er­enced Moala’s state­ment on cli­mate change in her con­tri­bu­tion.

Gov­ern­ment speak­er Kalen Mid­dle­ton (Be­lize), in her con­tri­bu­tion ahead of Moala, had al­so spo­ken of CO2 emis­sions.