COMMENT: By Ralph Regenvanu and Seve Paeniu

The cycle is repeating itself. A tropical cyclone of frightening strength strikes a Pacific island nation, and leaves a horrifying trail of destruction and lost lives and livelihoods in its wake.

Earlier this month in Vanuatu it was two category 4 cyclones within 48 hours of each other.

The people affected wake up having nowhere to go and lack the basic necessities to survive.

International media publishes grim pictures of the damage to our infrastructure and people’s homes, quickly followed by an outpouring of thoughts, prayers and praise for our courage and resilience.

We then set out to rebuild our countries.

The Pacific island countries are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and Vanuatu is the most vulnerable country in the world, according to a recent study. Our countries emit minuscule amounts of greenhouse gases, but bear the brunt of extreme events primarily caused by the carbon emissions of major polluters, and the world’s failure to break its addiction to fossil fuels.

The science is clear: fossil fuels are the main drivers of the climate crisis and need to be phased out rapidly, as the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report once again confirms. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has shown that ending the expansion of all fossil fuel production is an urgent first step towards limiting warming to 1.5C.

Driven by greed
The climate crisis is driven by the greed of an exploitative industry and its enablers. It is unacceptable that countries and companies are still planning to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels that the world can withstand by 2030 if we are to limit warming to 1.5C, a limit Pacific countries fought hard to secure in the Paris agreement.

As the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly declared, fossil fuels are a dead end. Governments must pursue a rapid and equitable phase-out of fossil fuels.

Countries cannot continue to justify new fossil fuel projects on the grounds of development, or the energy crisis. It is our reliance on fossil fuels that has left our energy infrastructure vulnerable to conflict and devastating climate impacts, left billions of people without energy access, and left investment in more flexible and resilient clean energy systems lagging behind what is needed.

Transitioning away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy is crucial to mitigating the impacts of climate change and ensuring a sustainable future for Pacific island countries and the world.

This requires ambitious collective effort from governments, businesses and individuals around the globe to transition towards renewable energy systems that centre the needs of communities and avoid replicating the harms of fossil fuel systems, while supporting those most affected by the transition.

Transitioning to clean energy and battling climate change is also a human rights and justice issue. This is why our countries will soon be asking the UN General Assembly to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the obligations of states under international law to protect the environment and the climate.

We urge all countries to support us in that endeavour.

Planning our transition
We acknowledge that Pacific countries are still reliant on fossil fuels for our daily lives and our economy. This is why we are planning our own just transition.

Last week, Pacific ministers and international partners met in cyclone-stricken Vanuatu to chart our collective way forward. We have affirmed a new commitment to work tirelessly to create a fossil fuel free Pacific, recognising that phasing out fossil fuels is not only in our best interest to avoid the worst of climate catastrophe — it is also an opportunity to promote economic development and innovation that we must seize.

By investing in renewable energy sources, we can build resilient, sustainable economies that benefit our people and the planet; and momentum for this shift is already building.

Last year at Cop27 in Egypt, more than 80 countries supported the phasing out of all fossil fuels. We must drive this new ambition around the world. Pacific nations will continue to spearhead global efforts to achieve an unqualified, equitable end to the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.

We will raise our collective voices at Cop28 and through leading initiatives such as the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

We know what needs to be done to keep 1.5C alive, and are aware of the small and shrinking window which we have left to achieve it. We are doing our part and urge the rest of the world to do theirs.

Ralph Regenvanu is Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change, Adaptation, Meteorology and Geohazards, Energy, Environment and Disaster Risk Management. Seve Paeniu is the Minister of Finance for Tuvalu. This article was first published by The Guardian and has been republished with the permission of the authors.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

There is “is much to win by trying” to take action on climate change — that is a key finding in a major new international climate report the UN chief is calling a “survival guide for humanity”.

It is something of a mic drop moment for the army of scientists who wrote it — the culmination of seven years’ work and three previous lengthy reports.

Thousands of scientific studies and nearly 8000 pages of findings have been boiled down in the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, released overnight.

In a nutshell, it said huge changes were needed to stave off the worst climate predictions but it was not too late.

“This Synthesis Report underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action & shows that, if we act now, we can still secure a liveable sustainable future for all.” – #IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee on the release of #IPCC’s Synthesis Report.

Read here 👉 https://t.co/zAMzd12lR7 pic.twitter.com/YcCqIHxuLJ

— IPCC (@IPCC_CH) March 20, 2023

Pacific Climate Warriors Te Whanganui-a-Tara coordinator Kalo Afeaki agrees there is no time for despair.

“My family live in Tonga, my father has an export business, my brother works with [him], his family depends on that livelihood,” he said.

“We do not have the luxury of being able to turn our backs on the climate crisis because we are living with it daily.”

The IPCC authors were optimistic significant change can happen fast — pointing to the massive falls in the price of energy from the sun and wind.

New Zealand has seen a big increase in the number of renewable energy projects in the works.

University of Otago senior lecturer Dr Daniel Kingston said the world had the tools it needed to reduce emission.

“We can still do something about this problem, and every small change that we make makes a difference and decreases the likelihood of major, abrupt, irreversible changes in the climate system.”

Those impacts need to be avoided at all costs — there are tipping points after which comes staggering sea level rise, storms and heat waves that could imperil swathes of humanity.

No country too small
Aotearoa New Zealand has an important role to play. It is one of the largest emitters per capita in the OECD, and its emissions, combined with the other smaller countries, adds up to about two-thirds of the world’s total.

New Zealand’s gross emission peaked in 2005 and have essentially plateaued, while other countries, including the UK and US, have actually made reductions.

Dr Kingston said Aotearoa finally had comprehensive emissions reduction plans on the books.

“Now’s the time to be doubling-down on our climate change policies, not pressing pause or scaling them back in any way.”

Action would never be cheaper than it was now, and not making enough cuts would be far more expensive in the long run.

Humans at fault
Meanwhile, the reports showed human activities had unequivocally caused global surface temperatures to rise: No ifs, no buts.

Massey University emeritus professor of sustainable energy and climate mitigation Ralph Sims said emissions needed to be slashed in the cities and the countryside alike.

Without a doubt farmers needed to cut methane emissions, but people also needed to eat less meat, he said.

Professor Sims said cities had a huge role to play.

“Design the cities around… public transport. [Putting] it onto the cities to plan for a more viable future means that local people can get involved locally.”

Afeaki said some Pacific nations would not survive unless the world got real about cutting emissions.

“When people are feeling disheartened they really need to understand the humans on the other side of this crisis,” he said.

“It is easy to be deterred by numbers, by the science, which isn’t always positive, but you have to also remember that this is happening to someone.”

Afeaki said Pacific communities’ experience living with climate change meant they should be given lead roles in coming up with solutions.

The IPCC scientists have now done their part, there likely will not be another report like this until the end of the decade. It is now time for the government, and for everybody, to act.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

This decade is the critical moment for making deep, rapid cuts to emissions, and acting to protect people from dangerous climate impacts we can no longer avoid, according to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The synthesis report is the culmination of seven years of global and in-depth assessments of various aspects of climate change.

It reiterates that the world is now about 1.1℃ warmer than during pre-industrial times. This already results in more frequent and more intense extreme weather, causing complex disruption and suffering for communities worldwide.

Many are woefully unprepared.

Key takeaway from #IPCC 2023 Synthesis Report for every nation, business, investor & individual who contributes to #climate change: we must move from climate procrastination to climate activation. And we must do it today.https://t.co/wqPf6CveMB

— Inger Andersen (@andersen_inger) March 20, 2023

The report stresses our current pace and scale of action are insufficient to reduce rising global temperatures and secure a liveable future for all. But it also highlights that we already have many feasible and effective options to cut emissions and better protect communities if we act now.

Many countries have already achieved and maintained significant emissions reductions for more than ten years. Overall, however, global emissions are up by 12 percent on 2010 and 54 percent higher than in 1990.

The largest rise comes from carbon dioxide (from the burning of fossil fuels and industrial processes), followed by methane.

The world is expected to cross the 1.5℃ temperature threshold during the 2030s (at the current level of action). Already, the effects of climate change are not linear and every increment of warming will bring rapidly escalating hazards, exacerbating more intense heatwaves and floods, ocean warming and coastal inundation.

These complex events are particularly severe for children, the elderly, Indigenous and local communities, and disabled people.

But in agreeing to this report, governments have now recognised that human rights and questions of equity, loss and damage are central to effective climate action.

New @IPCC_CH Synthesis Report released
One of the most impressive figures relates to the fairness across generations. The generation of my kids born in 2010s will face substantially more heatwaves, heavy rainfall and droughts during an average lifetime than their grandparents. pic.twitter.com/hWivpq74iO

— Erich Fischer (@erichfischer) March 20, 2023

This report also breaks emissions down to households — 10 percent of the highest-emitting households contribute 40-45 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, while 50 percent of the lowest-emitting households (including small islands communities), contribute less than 15 percent of overall greenhouse gases.

Climate-resilient development
The report points to solutions for climate-resilient development, a process which integrates actions to reduce or avoid emissions with those to protect people to advance sustainability. Examples include health improvements that come from broadening access to clean energy and contribute to better air quality.

But the choices we make need to be locally relevant and socially acceptable. And they have to be made urgently, because our options for resilient action are progressively reduced with every increment of warming above 1.5℃.

This report is also significant for recognising the importance of Indigenous knowledge and local community insights to help advance ambitious climate planning and effective climate leadership.

Cities can make a big difference
Cities are key drivers of emissions. They generate around 70 percent of carbon dioxide emissions globally, and this is rising largely through transport systems relying on fossil fuels, building materials and household consumption.

But this also means urban spaces are where we can really exercise climate leadership. Decisions made at the level of local councils are going to be significant globally in terms of bringing national and global emissions down and protecting people.

Cities are sites for solutions where we can decarbonise transport and increase green spaces. While tackling climate risks can feel overwhelming, acting at the city level is a way communities can have more control over reducing emissions and where local action can really make a difference to our quality of life.

We know there is much more money flowing into mitigation than adaptation. But we have to do both now, and move beyond adaptation focused on physical protection (such as sea walls).

We also need to be thinking really carefully about green infrastructure (trees and parks), low-carbon transport and social protection for communities, which includes income replacement, better healthcare, education and housing.

This report was particularly difficult to negotiate because we now live in a changed reality. More and more countries are experiencing very significant losses and damages. As countries face increasingly extreme weather events, the stakes are higher.

Governments everywhere, in my view as a political scientist, are now facing hard choices about how to protect their own national interests while also making significant efforts to tackle our global climate crisis.

In negotiations, larger countries can dominate debate and it can take a long time to get to agreement. This puts enormous pressure on smaller nations, including Pacific delegations with fewer people and diplomatic resources.

This is yet another reason to ensure action is inclusive, fair and equitable.

After working beyond the scheduled conclusion of #IPCC58, exhausted policymakers and authors celebrated the adoption of final outputs of the sixth assessment cycle: the Synthesis of the Sixth Assessment Report and its Summary for Policymakers #AR6

Read ➡️ https://t.co/Qf2U4EXPgJ pic.twitter.com/mQa4R8eu0i

— Earth Negotiations Bulletin (@IISD_ENB) March 20, 2023

For authors of the IPCC core writing team, the past 18 months have been intense. We all felt significant responsibility to accurately summarise years of work, completed by hundreds of our global scientific colleagues, who contributed to six reports in this assessment cycle: on physical science, adaptation and vulnerability, mitigation, and special reports on land, global warming of 1.5℃, and ocean and cryosphere.

These reports show the choices we make in this decade will impact current and future generations, and the planet, now and for thousands of years.

• Fear & Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation. It will take you inside the IPCC’s era-defining climate report via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it. The first episode drops on March 23. Learn more here, or subscribe on your favourite podcast app via the icons above.

Dr Bronwyn Hayward, Professor of Politics, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Deeper and and more rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are needed to limit the worst effects of global warming, a climate scientist has warned.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a report that global emissions of CO2 would need to peak within three years to stave off the worst impacts.

Without shrinking energy demand, reducing emissions rapidly by the end of this decade to keep warming below 1.5C will be almost impossible, the key UN body’s report said.

Even if all the policies to cut carbon that governments had put in place by the end of 2020 were fully implemented, the world will still warm by 3.2C this century.

At this point, only severe emissions cuts in this decade across all sectors, from agriculture and transport to energy and buildings, can turn things around, the report said.

IPCC vice-chair Dr Andy Reisinger told RNZ Morning Report the world was “pretty much out of time” to limit warming to 1.5C as agreed in Paris in 2015 and subsequently.

“What our report shows is that the emissions over the last decade were at the highest level ever in human history.

“But on the positive side, that level of emissions growth has slowed and globally we’ve seen a revolution in prices for some renewable energy technologies.” That had led to a rapid uptake of solar and wind energy technologies, he said.

“Also policies have grown. About half of global greenhouse gas emissions that we looked at in our report are now covered by some sort of laws that address climate change.”

The report said the world would need “carbon dioxide removal” (CDR) technologies – ranging from planting trees that soak up carbon to grow, to costly and energy-intensive technologies to suck carbon dioxide directly from the air.

Governments had historically seen these technologies as a “cop out” but they were needed alongside reducing emissions,” Reisinger said.

“The time has now run out. If we don’t achieve deep and rapid reductions during this decade, much more so than we’re currently planning to collectively, then limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is out of reach.

“And the world collectively has the tools to reduce emissions by about a half by 2030.”

NZ has ‘squandered 30 years’, says Shaw
Climate Change Minister James Shaw says Aotearoa New Zealand has the political will to tackle climate change but it would have been a lot easier if it had begun decades ago.

“We are one of the highest emitting countries in the world on a per-capita basis and what that means is we’re now in a situation where having essentially fluffed around for three decades the cuts that we need to make over are now far steeper than they would have been.”

“Our country has squandered the past 30 years,” Shaw told Morning Report.

He said the Emissions Reduction Plan to be published next month would set out how the country would reduce emissions across every sector of the economy.

“I think what’s different about the plan that we’re putting out in May is that it’s a statutory instrument”, he said, and was required under the Zero Carbon Act. It would have targets to reduce emissions to the year 2025, 2030 and 2035.

Shaw said measures like the clean car discount scheme were working.

New Zealand’s agricultural emissions had not reduced, he said. This was the year when final decisions would be made on whether agriculture was brought into the Emissions Trading Scheme, and the whole sector was involved in the process.

There were farms up and down the country doing a terrific job on emissions but like every sector there was a “noisy group” which was dragging the chain.

“I think the charge that Groundswell are laying that we are not listening to farmers is ‘total bollocks’, he said.

Shaw noted the IPCC report said 83 percent of net growth in greenhouse gases since 2010 had occurred in Asia and the Pacific — and that New Zealand, Australia and Japan, as a group, had some of the highest rates of greenhouse gas emissions per capita in 2019.

Cut consumer demand
While past IPCC reports on mitigating carbon emissions tended to focus on the promise of sustainable fuel alternatives, the new report highlights a need to cut consumer demand.

Massey University emeritus professor Ralph Sims, a review editor of the IPCC report, said one of the overarching messages is that people needed to change behaviours.

Despite New Zealanders having an attitude that our impact was small, in fact the country had some of the highest carbon emissions per capita, he said.

“We need people to look at their lifestyles, look at their carbon footprints and consider how they may reduce them.”

One of the easiest for the individual was to avoid food waste, he said.

Sims was involved in the transport chapter and said it was a key area for New Zealand.

“It’s the highest growing sector, and makes up for 20 percent of the country’s emissions.”

Faster electric vehicles change
He did not believe the country was transitioning fast enough to electric vehicles, and government assistance needed to be ramped up.

Electric vehicle prices would also reduce over time and a second hand market would make them more affordable, he said.

Sims said New Zealand needed to “get out of coal” and some companies were already reducing their coal demand.

Though New Zealand’s coal industry was small, exploration was still on the table and just last year the Southland District Council granted exploration at Ohai, he said.

Methane emissions need to reduce by a third by 2030, which Sims said is “a major challenge, and highly unlikely” to be achieved in New Zealand.

Victoria University of Wellington professor of physical geography James Renwick said curbing greenhouse gas emissions was still possible, with immediate action.

“The advice from the Climate Change Commission does show that we can peak emissions in the next few years and reduce and get down to zero carbon dioxide hopefully well in advance of 2050,” he said.

“It’s impossible to overstate the dangerous threat we face from climate change and yet politicians and policy makers and businesses still don’t act when everything’s at stake. I haven’t really seen the political will yet but we really need to see action.”

Technologies available at present to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere were not able to operate at the scale needed to make a difference to the climate system, he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The IPCC Working Group II report on climate impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability says man-made climate change is causing unprecedented damage to the natural environment and the livelihoods of billions of people.

It also says global warming is set to rise beyond 1.5 deg C by 2040 unless the world commits to drastically reduce its carbon emissions from the use of fossil fuels.

For nations on the frontlines in the Pacific the consequences will be disastrous with an increase in climate hazards such as sea-level rise, more frequent and severe extreme weather events including flooding, and droughts.

350 Pacific Climate Warriors council of elders member Brianna Fruean says the findings in the report are not new for the region.

Fruean is a prominent youth voice in international climate advocacy and spoke to RNZ Pacific’s regional correspondent Kelvin Anthony about what the report means for Pacific people.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As the New Zealand government prepares to deal with a looming omicron outbreak, this will not be the only major issue it will have to tackle this year.

The year 2022 will be important for environmental and climate action.

Several key developments are expected throughout the year, both in New Zealand and internationally, focusing on climate change and biodiversity — and how these crises overlap with the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic.

In February and early April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will publish the next two parts of its Sixth Assessment (AR6).

These reports will provide the basis for global negotiations at the next climate summit scheduled to be held in Egypt in November.

The February report will focus on impacts and adaptation and the April report on mitigation of climate change. Together, they will assess the global and regional impacts of climate change on natural ecosystems and on human societies, as well as opportunities to cut emissions.

They will identify points of particular vulnerability, consider the practicalities of technological innovations and weigh the costs and trade-offs of low-carbon opportunities. Both reports will present a definitive statement of where impacts of climate change are being felt and what governments and other decision makers can do about it.

Multiple crises
Climate change tends to dominate headlines about the environment. But biodiversity loss and accelerating rates of species extinction pose an equal threat to our economies, livelihoods and quality of life.

#ClimateChange – why 2022 matters

Look out for #IPCC #ClimateReports this year as the @UN outlines ten key global events in 2022 that will shape critical conversations and policies around #climatechange.https://t.co/6u8zE9ujRE

— IPCC (@IPCC_CH) January 12, 2022

A UN Global Assessment Report on biodiversity and ecosystem services predicts the loss of one million species during the coming decades. It foresees serious consequences for our food, water, health and social security.

New Zealand is not immune from this global crisis. About one third of our species are listed as threatened.

In April, the UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, China, will launch a new global biodiversity framework to guide conservation and sustainable management of ecosystems until 2030.

Expect to see intense negotiations on the current draft framework as states try to balance the need to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, without endangering economic priorities, including post-covid recovery.

New Zealand’s plan to cut emissions
In May, the government is expected to release its first emissions reduction plan (ERP), in response to the Climate Change Commission’s advice on how New Zealand can meet its domestic and international targets.

The plan will set out policies and strategies to keep the country within its emissions budget for 2022-25 and on track to meet future budgets.

Under the Climate Change Response Act 2002, the government is required to set emissions budgets for every three to four-year period between 2022 and 2050 and to publish emissions reduction plans for each.

The first plan looks likely to come at a difficult time for the economy. Businesses have already contended with covid-related lockdowns and uncertainty and may soon be challenged by staffing shortages in the wake of the omicron outbreak.

It will be tricky to balance the need for significant action to reduce emissions while keeping business and the wider community on board. Expect a wide-ranging plan with sector-specific strategies for transport, energy, industry, agriculture, waste and forestry, but little detail on agriculture.

Half a century since first environment summit
In 1972, the UN Conference on the Human Environment took place in Stockholm, Sweden. It was the first international conference to make the environment a major issue.

Fifty years on, in June this year Stockholm +50 will mark a half-century of global environmental action, and refocus world leaders’ attention on the “triple planetary crisis” of climate, biodiversity and pollution.

The aim is to accelerate progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and the global biodiversity framework, while making sure countries’ covid-19 recovery plans don’t jeopardise these. Expect growing demand for more global recognition of a “human right to a healthy environment” to leverage more effective environmental action.

On the domestic front, the national adaptation plan (NAP) is due in August. This will set out how the government should respond to the most significant climate change risks facing Aotearoa.

These risks range from financial systems to the built environment and have already been identified in the first national climate change risk assessment. Public consultation will take place in April and May.

There’s no substitute for face-to-face diplomacy. I’m here at COP26 to make sure that we meet the moment on climate, and kick off a decade of ambition, action, and innovation to preserve our shared future. pic.twitter.com/vhuHhyMqlv

— President Biden (@POTUS) November 1, 2021

The decade of action
The UN’s annual climate summit, COP27, will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November. Last year, COP26 drew unparalleled public attention and generated some positive new climate pledges.

One major success was an agreement that nations revisit and strengthen their nationally determined contributions by the end of 2022. But the summit was generally criticised for failing to secure commitments from high-emitting countries to keep global temperatures from climbing beyond 1.5℃.

The overarching aim to “keep 1.5℃ alive” will be more urgent than ever. A particular concern is how effectively civil society will be able to bring pressure to bear on governments.

Protests and activities are likely to be significantly limited by the Egyptian host government.

In the build-up to COP27, expect significant pressure on big polluter states to deliver more ambitious commitments to cut emissions, but also less flamboyant and free protests in Egypt.

The UN has called 2020-2030 the “decade of action”. The chance remains to avoid runaway climate change, protect biodiversity and stabilise our ecosystems. It’s imperative that this year, the third of this decade, is one that really counts.

Dr Nathan Cooper is associate professor of law at the University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Nearly two years since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, its global socioeconomic “headwinds” have blown many countries far off course from the aims of the climate 2030 Agenda, says the Fiji prime minister.

But fierce as those winds may be, they are “a whisper” next to the intensifying crisis brought by changing climate.

Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama made these remarks in his official opening address at the Virtual SIDS Solution Forum yesterday.

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are a distinct group of 38 UN member states, including Pacific countries.

Bainimarama referred to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Saying that without drastic cuts to emissions, the prime minister noted how the report had stated “we are on track to blow past the 1.5-degree temperature threshold, confirming our worst fears that our low-lying neighbours in the Pacific, Kiribati and Tuvalu, face an existential threat over the coming decades”.

“And it means all of us must brace for storms and other climate impacts unlike anything we or our ancestors have ever endured,” Bainimarama said.

“That is why, when we go to COP26 together, our rallying cry must be to keep 1.5 alive.

Temperature threshold
“It remains the only temperature threshold that guarantees the security of all SIDS citizens, and we must leverage every ounce of our power and moral authority to fight for it.”

Bainimarama said the terrifying scale of those global challenges “give us no recourse but collective action”.

“I believe we can meet this moment with innovation — indeed, we already are. Just one week ago, Fiji launched a micro insurance scheme for climate-vulnerable communities.

“We are supporting local farmers with climate-resilient crops and funding adaption efforts through creative financial instruments.”

He said that by harnessing the hope that such innovation offered, small island states could recoup the economic losses of the pandemic and reset course towards zero hunger, clean oceans, quality education, and sustainable cities.

The states could also realise the other noble aims of the 2030 Agenda, towards more sustainable agri-food systems, and more resilient societies.

Timoci Vula is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The world is on the brink of a climate catastrophe, with just a narrow window for action to reverse global processes predicted to cause devastating effects in the Pacific and world-wide, says the leader of the 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum.

Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna said a major UN scientific report released on Monday backed what the Blue Pacific continent already knew — that the planet was in the throes of a human-induced climate crisis.

The report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) described a “code red” warning for humanity.

Puna said a major concern was sea level change; the report said a rise of 2 metres by the end of this century, and a disastrous rise of 5 metres rise by 2150 could not be ruled out.

The report also found that extreme sea level events that previously occurred once in 100 years could happen every year by the end of this century.

To put this into perspective, these outcomes were predicted to result in the loss of millions of lives, homes and livelihoods across the Pacific and the world.

The IPCC said extreme heatwaves, droughts, flooding and other environmental instability were also likely to increase in frequency and severity.

Governments cannot ignore voices
Puna said governments, big business and the major emitters of the world could no longer ignore the voices of those already enduring the unfolding existential crisis.

“They can no longer choose rhetoric over action. There are simply no more excuses to be had. Our actions today will have consequences now and into the future for all of us to bear.”

The 2019 Pacific Islands Forum Kainaki Lua Declaration remained a clarion call for urgent climate action, he said.

The call urged the UN to do more to persuade industrial powers to cut their carbon emissions to reduce contributing to climate change.

However, Puna said the factors affecting climate change could be turned around if people acted now.

“The 6th IPCC Assessment Report shows us that the science is clear. We know the scale of the climate crisis we are facing. We also have the solutions to avoid the worst of climate change impacts.

“What we need now is political leadership and momentum to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz