The Pacific islands are uniquely vulnerable to a variety of unpredictable events - natural disasters, including potential climate change impact, as well as health emergencies. The region is made up of mainly very small countries with poor socio-economic development. These and other contextual factors result in unique challenges in building systems, skills and experience necessary to maintain and promote a well functioning national society.
The Pacific Islands region faces increasing environmental and socioeconomic pressures exacerbated by global climate change and climate variability.1 Adaptation to climate change and variability (CCV) is ultimately an issue of sustainable development. Even without climate change, Pacific island countries are already severely affected by climate variability and extremes, and they remain extremely vulnerable to future changes in the regional climate that could increase the risks.
As parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) gather in Bali, Indonesia to initiate a fresh effort to develop a global strategy to address climate change, the case for basing that strategy on early, deep cuts in emissions is being aggressively touted. To reinforce that case, the argument is being made that if such a strategy is not
adopted, developing countries like China and India will be those most adversely affected.
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 32 p.
Adaptation activities in the Pacific. Lessons learned and best practices identified. Costs of extreme events to Small. Emerging risks and trends identified by climate change scientists
Islands
Kept in vertical file collection|Powerpoint presentation
Call Number: VF 6744 ,[EL]
Physical Description: 24 p. ; 29 cm
All over the world Indigenous Peoples are affected by the impacts of climate change. They often live close to the land and depend on its physical resources and richness for their livelihoods and well-being. Their environments are increasingly threatened by, for example, desertification, sea level rise, extreme weather events, and changes in wildlife health, migration patterns and abundance. At the same time, there is evidence that some current attempts to tackle climate change may also have disastrous effects on indigenous groups and communities.
Available online
Papua New Guinea (PNG) hosts some of the world's largest and
last remaining intact forest landscapes. While these forests have always been a haven for biodiversity and provided a livelihood for the millions of people who live in them, it is only in recent years that their importance for carbon storage has come to be fully appreciated.
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 32 p.
The human drama of climate change will largely be played out in Asia, where over 60 per cent of the world's population, around four billion people, live. Over half of those live near the coast, making them directly vulnerable to sea-level rise. Disruption to the region's water cycle caused by climate change also threatens the security and productivity of the food systems upon which they depend. In acknowledgement, both of the key meetings in 2007 and 2008 to secure a global climate agreement will be in Asia.
Available electronically
The World's oceans play a crucial role for life on the planet.
Healthy seas and the services they provide are key to the future
development of mankind. Our seas are highly dynamic, structured and complex systems. The seafloor consists of vast shelves
and plains with huge mountains, canyons and trenches which
dwarf similar structures on land. Ocean currents transport water
masses many times larger than all rivers on Earth combined.
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
ISBN/ISSN: 978-82-7701-048-9
GOOS is being implemented in the Pacific islands region by PacificGOOS, which was formed in Suva in 1998. In August 2000, in Apia, Samoa, PacificGOOS held a regional workshop on the development of a coastal Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) for the Pacific region. This workshop aimed to raise the level of awareness about PacificGOOS and its value for sustainable
Tuvalu, a small island nation in the Pacific, has in recent years lost about one metre of land around the circumference of its largest atoll due to changes in storm conditions and rising sea levels. Tuvalu is one of the worlds lowest lying countries, with its highest point standing a mere four and a half metres above sea level. Half of Tuvalus population of 11,000 people live just three metres above sea level
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 32 p.
As early as 1990 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change might be on human migrationwith millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruption.3 Since then, successive reports have argued that environmental degradation, and in particular climate change, is poised to become a major driver of population displacementa crisis in the making.
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 64 p.
The main purpose of this paper is to help policy makers,
particularly those in developing countries, think about the national policy instruments needed to contribute to the
fight against climate change, how such needs can be articulated in order to seek internal and external financial resources and how these needs may be reflected in negotiations of a future climate change agreement. This paper is an input to a series of workshops which the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will organize in developing countries with the aim of improv-
Climate change is one of the greatest threats to our
planet and its people. Reducing emissions of greenhouse
gases (GHG) is called mitigation. Responding to the impacts of climate change is called adaptation. A certain amount of adaptation will be necessary, no matter what we do. But, there will come a point where it will not be possible to adapt our way out of the problem.
In 2007, the UNFCCC Secretariat prepared a report on
"Investment and Financial Flows to Address Climate
Change".11 The report covers mitigation and adaptation in
various sectors over the period to 2030. The report defines
an investment as the initial (capital) cost of a new physical
asset with a life of more than one year, such as the capital
cost of a gas-fired generating unit or a water supply
system. A financial flow is an ongoing expenditure related
to climate change mitigation or adaptation that docs not
It is now widely acknowledged within the scientific community that the global rate of sea- level rise is quickening - and is likely to continue to do so as a result of anthropogenic
climate change. It is expected, therefore, that any resulting increase in the frequency or intensity of extreme sea-level events will cause serious problems for the inhabitants of low-
lying coastal communities and islands during the 21st century.
Available online
Call Number: [EL[
Physical Description: 16 p.
Samoa, a small islands country in the south pacific comprises of four main inhabitated islands and 6 smaller uninhabitated islands. The islands of Samoa lie between latitudes of 13° 15°S to and longitudes of 168° -173° W. The total land area is estimated to be around 2820 km2 whereby Upolu holds 1115 km2 and Savaii with 1700 km2. The capital Apia is located on the northern part of Upolu and is approximately 130 km from Pago Pago, American Samoa, 3000 km from Auckland, New Zealand, 4500 km from Sydney Australia, and 4300 km from Honolulu, Hawaii.
While acknowledging their diversity, the IPCC Third
Assessment Report (TAR) also noted that small island states
share many similarities (e.g., physical size, proneness to natural disasters and climate extremes, extreme openness of their economies, low adaptive capacity) that enhance their vulnerability and reduce their resilience to climate variability and change.
Available online|(* NB these materials are also available on the workshop CDROM deposited with the IRC NBSAP workshop Nadi, Feb 2009)
Call Number: [EL]
1. Article 6 of the Convention on Biological Diversity/ requires each Party to develop or adapt national strategies, plans or programmes for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and to integrate, as far as possible and as appropriate, the conservation and sustainable use of biological
diversity into relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans, programmes and policies.
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 11 Pages
One of the recommendations emerging from the COP-8 (Decision XIII/8 [6]) promoted a series of regional and/or sub-regional workshops on capacity building for NBSAPs. These will
be held with the aim to discuss national experiences in implementing NBSAPs, the integration of biodiversity concerns into relevant sectors, obstacles, and ways and means
for overcoming these obstacles. It was recommended that these workshops be held (subject to the availability of funding) prior to COP-9, to provide an opportunity to directly support
This discussion paper makes a case for the glass half full view of Copenhagen. To sustain this optimism, this paper seeks to move the focus from the outcomes of one (unprecedented) international meeting and draw conclusions from the more important trends in climate policy globally. Given the apparent disconnect between these positive trends and the slow progress within the negotiations, this paper calls for a 'new multilateralism' aimed at unlocking ambitious global action on climate change.
Available online
Call Number: [EL]