Climate Change

Pacific island students attend COP21 to build capacity

The postgraduate students are part of a team of 10 from the USP, which includes both a legal and a science expert.

Each of the eight students have been accredited to six different Pacific island country delegations and are providing support on issues that are important to the Pacific such as climate finance, loss and damage as well as the Enhanced Durban Platform for Action.

More Pacific people opt to migrate due to climate change

It's the first and largest survey of its kind to be done in the Pacific by the United Nations University, and the results were released at the margins of the UN's 21st Conference of the Parties currently underway in Paris. A total of 6,852 individuals in the three islands participated in the study, who represented 852 households in Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu.

Cook Islands message to the world at COP21

Over 150 leaders from across the globe met in Paris, France to demonstrate their support to save the Planet through a new climate change agreement. The form of this is to be finalised by the end of the two weeks of negotiations. The Cook Islands are uniting with the Alliance of Small Island States and are calling for a legally binding agreement that limits global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Polynesian and NZ Anglicans urge climate action

The archbishop of Polynesia, right reverend Winston Halapua, says the areas that he walked and fished as a boy with his father, seeking food for the family, on the island of Pangaimotu in Tonga, have now gone.

He says for some in Polynesia the truth is as plain as writing on the wall.

Pacific Island nations accuse Australia of failing to 'bat for neighbours'

President Anote Tong is among leaders of some of the world's most vulnerable islands calling for big polluting nations to stand up at the United Nations summit and ensure their survival.

As the richest country in the region, Australia faces Pacific calls to push for a strong deal that limits global warming to 1.5 degrees.

But so far, Tong hasn't seen evidence of that from the Australians.

“They've not been doing any batting at the moment for us,” he told AAP in Paris on Tuesday.

NZ accepts Kyoto Protocol amendment

The amendment is expected to enter into force after three quarters of the Parties to the Protocol submit their instruments of acceptance to the Depositary.

The United Nations is encouraging governments to speed up their ratification of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, the international emissions reduction treaty. Ratification is necessary to provide valuable momentum for global climate action for the years leading up to 2020.

President Obama hears concerns of Pacific and Caribbean leaders

The meeting is an attempt by both Parties to explore options on key negotiating positions of small and vulnerable nations at the frontline of climate change.

The meeting on the margins of the COP21 conference in Le Bourget was ‘useful’ according to President Tong.

The three Pacific Leaders invited to the talk, Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Papua New Guinea – put to President Obama the need for ‘loss and damage’ and the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees’ in the proposed Paris Agreement.

Tonga facing up to rising sea levels

From the air, the flat, small island of Tongatapu doesn't look much like land at all, with the astonishingly blue Pacific Ocean dominating the view.

But it is home to Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, and to the majority of the country's population - 70,000 or so out of around 90,000.

And for Tongans - who have lived here since the 9th Century, when the first settlers arrived by boat, the issue of rising sea levels and climate change is not just one for discussion at an abstract level - it proves a threat to their very existence.

Tuvalu and Palau submit climate plans

Known as Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, INDC for short, these plans outline among things carbon emission reduction targets each country is committed to. Two island nations, Tuvalu and Palau submitted their INDCs the last 48 hours, on the eve of the opening of the final rounds of climate change negotiations in Paris.

France Oceania summit recognises PIDF

Called the France Oceania Summit, most leaders of the Pacific attended including the founder and current chair of the PIDF, Prime Minister of Fiji, Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama.

Also in attendance was the new Secretary General of the PIDF Francois Martel and his climate adviser Dr Mahendra Kumar.