Talking from the heart: how a former pilot is advocating for Fiji on the global stage

Laurie Singh has a unique perspective on his homeland of Fiji. As a former commercial pilot, the ANU Master’s graduate knows the vast archipelago of more than 330 volcanic islands from the sky.

“When you are flying, visually, it’s beautiful,” he says.

“When you fly over the islands, you really see the pristine environment of Fiji.”

Now, Singh sees Fiji from a very different angle, as he works to climate-proof Fiji’s development.

Singh took study leave from his position as Principal Policy Planning Officer in the Ministry of Strategic Planning, National Development and Statistics in Fiji to undertake a Master of Environmental Management and Development at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Days after finishing his final exams and assessments, he travelled alongside three other ANU postgraduate students to COP30 in Belém, Brazil, as part of the Dhumimanyin Gawar program, led by the ANU Pacific Institute.

Devastating realities of climate change

Singh wasn’t initially interested in climate change – his first passion was flying.

After the birth of his first child in 2016, he switched his career in aviation for one in the civil service, in the hope that it would keep him closer to home.

As it happened, this decision took him further away from home than he could have imagined.

Tropical Cyclone Winston had just hit his country when he began his new career. Winston was a category five cyclone and the strongest ever to hit Fiji at that time, with wind gusts over 325 kilometeres per hour.

Many people chose to stay at home rather than go to government shelters. Sadly, dozens were killed as buildings collapsed.

The storm caused coastal surges and destroyed crops, homes, and infrastructure. Five per cent of the population was left living in evacuation centers.

One of Singh’s first tasks was surveying the devastated regions.

“It was really sad seeing people losing their homes, their livelihoods, and staying in tents. Even today we have some communities still trying to overcome the impact of Winston,” he said.

As he travelled the country writing up post-disaster needs assessments, Singh came to understand the enormous complexity of addressing disasters in Fiji.

Supplying the initial relief is difficult over such a large area, particularly as cyclones destroy vessels and disrupt shipping.

The intensity and frequency of cyclones have increased with climate change.

“Next year they are predicting three cyclones to hit our country and that never used to be the case. We used to get a cyclone every second to third year,” Singh said.

The increasing frequency of disasters makes the recovery even more complicated – Fiji can hardly recover from one disaster before the next one hits, leaving little time and resources for planning and adaptation.

Fiji’s continuing challenges

As a developing country, Fiji is still building infrastructure like roads. But with the climate constantly changing, it is building on shifting sands.

Singh’s mother is an Indigenous woman from the tiny, outlying island of Cicia. Cicia’s healthcare centre, built close to the coast, now floods periodically as the sea rises.

“When government infrastructure was being developed, climate change was not a consideration. So, infrastructure like cyclone centres were not really to the standard of category five cyclones.”

Alongside infrastructure, agriculture also needs to adapt as seasons and rains change. The Fijian government is racing to develop more climate resilient crops.

Disaster response, infrastructure building, and climate adaptation are expensive. The cost is borne largely through taxes on ordinary Fijians. Frequent disasters are doubly burdensome as they increase the need for spending while also impacting on revenue.

When cyclone Winston hit, the losses may have been as high as a third of Fiji’s GDP, Singh explains.

Currently, the support Fiji receives from its international partners is not enough to keep up with the pace of climate change. Only a small proportion of global climate finance reaches the Pacific region.

Advocating for the Pacific

Every year since 1995, the state signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change gather at the Conference of the Parties (COP) to negotiate international agreements relating to climate change.

A loss and damage fund was established at COP27 in Egypt in recognition of the deep inequality between those countries who have economically benefited from releasing greenhouse gases, and those countries who will suffer the impacts with little of the benefit.

Fijian negotiators have been strongly advocating for progress on loss and damage. It was an area of climate negotiations that Singh was keen to understand more deeply.

“For communities like mine, loss and damage is not abstract. It is the difference between repairing a seawall or clinic on time, maintaining livelihoods, and safeguarding culture.”

In particular, Singh wanted to understand how to turn decision text from a COP conference into funded, replicable programs on the ground in Fiji.

With a greater understanding of the international context, Singh imagined producing simple materials that could be used to gain funding and roll out projects across the archipelago.

Dhumimanyin Gawar: talking from the heart

Singh was selected alongside fellow Pacific Island and First Nations postgraduate students Nancy Diamana, Benjamin Mitchell and Vanessa Talei Rodie to attend COP30 in Belém, Brazil.

The costs for travelling to the small city in the heart of the Amazon quickly soared as tens of thousands of delegates competed for limited accommodation.

Some estimates suggest that fossil fuel companies were able to send around 1600 lobbyists. Fiji’s entire delegation consisted of around 20 to 30 people. For a student to be able to attend the summit is truly extraordinary.

The scholars were mentored by Research Fellow Dr Virginia Marshall, Associate Professor Siobhan McDonnell and Salā Dr George Carter who all attended the conference in Brazil.

Now in its fourth year running, the program was blessed by Uncle Wally Bell, a Ngunawal Traditional Custodian, and given the name Dhumimanyin Gawar, which means “talking from the heart”.

Dr Virginia Marshall reflected on the importance of the program during her analysis of COP30 during a webinar shortly after the summit.

“There is nothing that beats the opportunity for a scholar to actually sit in that space and not only pose questions, if they feel bold enough to do, but also to take in a whole variety of global thought on these really important issues.”

Despite the small population of Pacific Island countries, they successfully worked together to deliver outcomes at COP.

Part of this comes down to sheer determination. But it also comes down to the power of the stories and lived experience that Pacific delegates bring to the negotiations.

Not only have citizens lost lives and livelihoods in disasters, climate change represents an existential threat to many.

“In our culture, the Vanua, or the land, is tied to the people, so all the cultural identity is being lost. It’s not only impacting us economically – there’s the emotional impact.”

Before attending COP30, Singh admits he was skeptical of the value of Fiji sending delegates to the conference. With his background in economics, he didn’t see the return on investment. Being in that space changed his mind.

He now believes that, given the importance of the negotiations, it’s essential to have voices of people who are experiencing climate change in the room.

“They’re trying to amplify the voices of our people. Without this project, I wouldn’t have experienced it.”

Singh has now graduated from ANU, winning the Elsbeth Young Prize for Social Contribution.

He’s preparing to return to his role in the central planning and budget agency and to implement changes based on his learning.

“My aim is to take the knowledge I have gained here to train all the junior staff so that we can better do climate assessments on policies within our office itself,” he explains.

While Singh was grateful for the direct flights between Canberra and Fiji that made it easier to visit his family, his youngest daughter found it hard to understand why he was away for the two years it took to complete his degree.

He hopes that, when she’s older, his daughter will understand the sacrifice that he made for her future and the future of all Fijians.

“I’m doing this for my kids to have a better future.”