Climate Change Resilience
SPREP, with funding from GIZ, has recently completed a pilot assessment of the capacity of Pacific Island countries to address loss and damage from the adverse impacts of climate change.
This pilot assessment was carried out in Samoa, Vanuatu and Kiribati with the assistance of Ms Malia Talakai, who was contracted as a consultant through SPREP.
Initial findings have shown that while the issue of Loss and Damage is still a relatively new one in the Pacific, countries have started to gather initial information on key climate change impacts, including sea level rise and temperature change.
Coral reefs are vulnerable to increasing sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification. Photo: Carlo Iacovino/SPREP
While there is also a lot of knowledge on what are sometimes termed ‘rapid onset events’ that is extreme events such as cyclones and flooding, there is less known in the region on what is termed as ‘slow onset events’. Examples of slow onset events include increasing atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, ocean acidification, and sea level rise.
Consultations in all three countries showed a strong interest in the need to set up long-term monitoring programmes which would be able to assess these slow onsets events over a longer period.
Input on the initial assessments was also collected from other agencies in the region with experience in this area, including the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and UNESCO.
The reports from these studies will be completed by the end of this month, and will be used as the basis to develop a longer term work programme for the region to address issues related to Loss and Damage.
For more information on this work, please contact Diane McFadzien ([email protected]).
This pilot assessment was carried out in Samoa, Vanuatu and Kiribati with the assistance of Ms Malia Talakai, who was contracted as a consultant through SPREP.
Initial findings have shown that while the issue of Loss and Damage is still a relatively new one in the Pacific, countries have started to gather initial information on key climate change impacts, including sea level rise and temperature change.
Coral reefs are vulnerable to increasing sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification. Photo: Carlo Iacovino/SPREP
While there is also a lot of knowledge on what are sometimes termed ‘rapid onset events’ that is extreme events such as cyclones and flooding, there is less known in the region on what is termed as ‘slow onset events’. Examples of slow onset events include increasing atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, ocean acidification, and sea level rise.
Consultations in all three countries showed a strong interest in the need to set up long-term monitoring programmes which would be able to assess these slow onsets events over a longer period.
Input on the initial assessments was also collected from other agencies in the region with experience in this area, including the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and UNESCO.
The reports from these studies will be completed by the end of this month, and will be used as the basis to develop a longer term work programme for the region to address issues related to Loss and Damage.
For more information on this work, please contact Diane McFadzien ([email protected]).