Climate Change

Pacific island challenges are made harder with the impacts of climate change. The island region which consists of 30,000 islands with three of the five lowest countries on earth is one of the most vulnerable regions on earth to the impacts of climate change.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said this in a report released ahead of the 21st United Nations climate change conference, known as COP21.

According to the agency, of the 530 million children in the flood-prone zones, some 300 million live in countries where more than half the population lives in poverty – on less than $3.10 a day. Of those living in high drought severity areas, 50 million are in countries where more than half the population lives in poverty.

The organisation issued the warning to mark Universal Children's Day om Friday.

It says climate change is exacerbating and speeding up already existing challenges in low-lying countries such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands.

UNICEF says this threatens to undo development gains made over decades.

 “Science tells us that there is one path for us to be able to have a stable planet and a safe stable economy, and that is to get onto a below 2 degree path – that is fundamental – and policy is actually following science as it should,” said Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, speaking to reporters in Bonn, Germany.

Less than two weeks away from the UN climate conference in Paris, widely known as COP21, she announced that 168 countries, covering almost 90 per cent of global emissions, have now submitted their national climate targets, known as INDCs.

At a dinner convened jointly between France and the UK in London last week, a group of representatives from such small island states described the severity of the threat they face. They are understandably pushing hard for all nations to do more to cut emissions and help prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

The threats facing the rest of the world are no less grave. To preserve a climate that can support a healthy, prosperous population, we must limit global warming to no more than 1.5°C or 2°C.

Australia has announced that it will support the Pacific in its quest to have a legally binding agreement at the United Nations Climate Change (COP21) talks in France later this month.

Minister for International Development and the Pacific Steven Ciobo, made the revelation while launching the Tide Gauge system in Niue Wednesday.

The announcement is good news for the region as pleas from Pacific Islands to Australia in the past to reduce its greenhouse emissions fell on deaf ears.

Over the past three years, Palau’s government agencies, civil society and the private sector have worked proactively to complete this policy which has as its vision “Happy, healthy, sustainable and resilient communities in a changing world”.

The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is the world body responsible for overseeing the exchange of plant genetic resources for agriculture.

The meeting of the 136-nation pact will discuss expanding the list of plant species in the Treaty’s global gene pool and a subscription model for users of crop diversity to generate income for farmers conserving ancestral crops in the field. This will be in addition to the Treaty’s current benefit-sharing fund that has directly helped nearly half a million poor farmers.

Kiribati, with help from the Prince Albert of Monaco Foundation, is hosting a conference to consider how to prepare for climate migrants to move in a dignified way.

The Kiribati Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Akka Rimon, says it is part of the gradual process of preparation for something that will become inevitable.

She says one thing they will want to look at will be extensions to existing labour mobility arrangements with countries like Australia and New Zealand.

The call was to successfully implement and meet the objectives of Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“If our collective will to implement the 2030 Agenda is sincere, then it is essential to greatly enhance the means and mechanisms of implementation on a much greater scale than those recommended in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda,” said, Caleb Otto, Permanent Representative of Palau to the United Nations, referring to another recently adopted plank making up the UN post-2015 framework, this one dealing with development financing.