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
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
Climate Change; Global Warming; Environmental Policy; Social Sciences; Religion; Entertainment; Advertising; Education; Business; Finance; Civil Society; Political Aspects; Recommendations
ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME
Call Number: [EL]
ISBN/ISSN: 0-9707882-4-X
Physical Description: 189p.
This report presents the integrated case study for Fiji carried out under an OECD project on Development and Climate Change. The report is structured around a three-tier framework. First, recent climate trends and climate change scenarios for Fiji are assessed, and key sectoral impacts are identified and ranked along multiple indicators to establish priorities for adaptation. Second, donor portfolios are analyzed to examine the proportion of donor activities affected by climate risks.
More is known about birds response to climate change to date than for any other animal group, mostly as a result of many species- and location-specific analyses. Yet of the global or international-scale analyses of biodiversity and climate change, very few concentrate on birds in particular. This review seeks to provide a global survey of the climate threat to birds by compiling hundreds of individual studies to resolve the larger picture of impacts
A report to: World Wildlife Fund for Nature
Call Number: [EL]
Niue consists of a single uplifted coral atoll with a unique rugged coastline. It is situated in the Southwest Pacific Ocean within the Polynesian cultural zone. The population of Niue was 2.088 at the 1977 population census, and is a declining population due to outward migration. Niue lies on the edge of the southern tropical cyclone belt, and has two distinct seasons, a hot wet season from November to March and a cool dry season from April to November. The economy is largely dependent on overseas aid. with no realistic prospect of economic self-reliance.
Global change poses enormous challenges to those responsible for managing the world's forests. There is perhaps no other ecosystem that is so closely linked to, and affected by, human induced changes to climate - being regarded simultaneously as a victim, a villain and a potential saviour. Concentrations of carbon dioxide methane and other greenhouse gases are rising at an accelerating rate in the atmosphere, largely as a result of emissions from human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.
The impacts of climate change on biodiversity and the degree to which autonomous and directed adaptation will lesson these impacts are likely to be complex and hard to predict. This will make the research information we gain particularly difficult to communicate to the people who will be required to act on this information, namely ecosystem managers, resource managers, the public and policy makers
climate change and biodiversity details
Call Number: [EL]
One of the major concerns for Kosrae States development now and into the future is the risk
of climate change. The Fourth Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate
Change states that the warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from
observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of
snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level1. Resilience and sustainability needs to be
systematically built into Kosraes key economic and climate sensitive sectors in order to
Pacific Islanders traditionally have enjoyed diverse ways to achieve food security, through gardening, fishing, hunting, and selling products or labour for cash, reports JON BARNETT.
But robust local food production has significantly been eroded with urbanisation and cheap, poor quality food imports. Climate change will increase threats to food security, through
The Working Group I contribution to the IPCC Fourth
Assessment Report describes progress in understanding of
the human and natural drivers of climate change,1 observed
climate change, climate processes and attribution, and
estimates of projected future climate change. It builds
upon past IPCC assessments and incorporates new findings
from the past six years of research. Scientific progress
since the Third Assessment Report (TAR) is based upon
large amounts of new and more comprehensive data,
Cooperate with other such Parties to enhance the individual and combined effectiveness of their policies and measures adopted under this Article, pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 2 (e) (i), of the Convention. To this end, these Parties shall take steps to share their experience and exchange information on such policies and measures, including developing ways of improving their comparability, transparency and effectiveness. The Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Protocol shall, at its first session or as soon
The Republic of Kiribati is a small island state with a total land area of 800 sq. km distributed unequally between 32 low lying atolls and one raised limestone atoll. The 32 atolls are
generally within any heights from less than a meter to four meters above the mean sea level. Eleven of these atolls are uninhabitable because of their small size and lack of ground water lens. The atolls spread over a total Exclusive Economic Zone of 3.5 million sq. km.
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 69p.
Scientific evidence of human interference with the climate first emerged in the international public arena in 1979 at the First World Climate Conference (see timelines). As public awareness of environmental issues continued to increase in the 1980s, governments grew even more concerned about climate issues. In 1988 the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution
43/53, proposed by the Government of Malta, urging: "... protection of global climate for present and future generations of mankind."
Call Number: [EL]
Mangrove systems occur extensively on low gradient tropical shorelines, where sedimentation enables resilience during sea-level rise (SLR). Within mangroves, inundation frequencies across the intertidal slope cause zonation of different species with elevation. This tight sea-level control of the seaward margin and zones within mangroves has been demonstrated by precise EDM survey. Hence species zones in mangroves are definitive indicators of sea-level position, and pollen
As a result of previous studies carried out through the support of UNEP to the South Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP) Regional Seas programme in the Pacific, a number
of island States have been perceived as being under immediate threat of major environmental change should greenhouse-forced climatic warming and consequent sea level rise occur.
A report produced for the Association of South Pacific Environmental Institutions (ASPEI) to the government of Kiribati and the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme|2 copies|Also available online
If nothing is done as a matter of urgency, Kiribati like other small island states and low lying coastal areas and other ecosystems will continue to suffer in silence the
ongoing and increasingly unbearable adverse impacts of climate change and sea level rise.
The Federated States of Micronesia includes the most geographically and culturally diverse part of the greater Micronesian region. The nation is comprised of four states Yap, Chuuk,
Pohnpei, and Kosrae lying along the equator in geographic sequence from west to east. The nation has a total population of about 106,000. Each state has considerable autonomy
within the federation and has devised its own strategy for development. An overall, integrated development vision for the federation is provided by the national government.
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With financial assistance from the Government of Denmark, the South Pacific Regional Environment
Programme (SPREP) convened this meeting in order to provide a forum where government officials, scientists and other technical experts from the region could interact with individuals working at the international level in climate change research, assessments, negotiations and institutional and financial support.
Kept in vertical file collection|E-copy of full text is available in "FL" field
Call Number: 551.699
The Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are currently heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Renewable energy (RE),
mostly hydro, is estimated to contribute less than 10 percent of each PICs commercial energy use and the
region is characterized by scattered and fragmented efforts to promote RE technologies that are based on
unreliable and unsubstantiated data on RE resource potentials. The Pacific Islands Renewable Energy Project
(PIREP) will facilitate the promotion within the PICs of the widespread implementation and ultimately,