Tongan athlete Pita Taufatofua made headlines when he marched for his country in the opening ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympic games wearing a traditional Tongan skirt, and again at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics despite freezing temperatures. The Olympic taekwondo practitioner learned to ski in only three months before qualifying to ski in the Pyeongchang Games. Now, he wants to use his platform to speak out about climate justice.
This is for anyone that ever had a dream….#andWasTold “you can’t”#YouCan pic.twitter.com/U7O5HBL3cE
— Pita Taufatofua (@pitaTofua) February 9, 2018
Taufatofua told ABC’s Pacific Beat program that “For me, all of these causes are linked. All of these are one and the same thing. It’s about our planet, it’s about our humanity, social issues.” To the Tongan athlete, climate change is “an important issue for anyone who lives on this planet.”
“I exist on this planet, I eat from the land, I walk on the land, I swim in the oceans,” he says. “And I think that anyone who respects or cares for nature has to take some vision or view on the way this planet is going. We’re all part of the same thing.”
While Taufatofua believes climate change is important to all residents of planet Earth, he emphasizes that not everyone is affected equally. Tonga and the other Pacific Islands are “the lowest lying islands” and “bear the brunt” of effects of greenhouse gasses emitted by other nations.
“There’s more cyclones, and it’s going to get worse,” he says to ABC Net. “We’re such vulnerable little countries economically, and to rebuild after an event like this that’s happening every year is just devastating.”
Taufatofua warns that residents of these islands could one day become climate refugees. “Tongans may be pedaling up to Australian shores soon because there is no Tonga.” He encourages more powerful nations like Australia, where he also holds citizenship, to lead efforts against climate change.
As an athlete and a climate justice advocate, Taufatofua carries his pride in his Tongan heritage. About his athletic and advocacy pursuits, he says, “I’m going to represent a thousand years of culture.”
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