9 December 2019, Madrid, Spain – Despite being one of the smallest emitters of harmful gasses in the world and therefore the least contributors to the cause of climate change, Niue has set an ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) plan to ensure, they are taking the lead in being part of the solution.
This was the message driven home by the Minister of Natural Environment of Niue, Hon. Dalton Tagelagi, during a side event hosted by the Government of Niue at the Moana Blue Pacific Pavilion to highlight work done on the ground to combat climate change in the small Pacific island nation.
Ms. Charlotte Pihigia, Climate Change Officer of the Department of Environment, spoke on the country’s NDCs which was submitted in November 2015 with the assistance of SPREP and the Government of France.
_0.JPG)
“The Niue National Strategic Plan, National Climate Change Policy, Joint National Action Plan on Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change, as well as the Niue Integrated Energy Roadmap 2015-2020 are all incorporated into our NDC, so you see elements of adaptation, mitigation, finance loss and damage as we are drawing from national documents on how we can align our work with relevant key partners,” said Ms Pihigia.
The country’s conditional mitigation target under their NDCs is to have 80% share of renewable energy of total electricity generation, or even higher, by 2025. The unconditional target is to achieve 38% share of renewable energy of total electricity generation by 2020.
Mr. Haden Talagi, Director of the Department of Environment under the Ministry of Natural Resources in Niue, walked through Niue’s responses to global commitments such as being parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol, and how these are then translated into regional and national frameworks and policies.
.JPG)
“We have to bring some of the initiatives that are taking place at the international level to the regional and then to the national level, so that as the government, the communities will benefit directly and indirectly from some of our commitments at the international stage,” Mr Talagi said.
“It's not an easy job and so we lean on the assistance and expertise of our regional organisations such as the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and the Pacific Community (SPC) for both technical and operational assistance,” he added.
Hon. Minister Tagelagi concluded by thanking all the partners who have worked with Niue to develop its strategic priorities on climate change as well as its NDCs and urged all heads of governments to work together to combat climate change. If Niue can do it, so can the rest of the world.
The Government of Niue side event titled – “Ocean Conservation and Management, Marine Spatial Planning” was held at the Moana Blue Pacific Pavilion on the first day of Week 2 of the UNFCCC 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25).
The UNFCCC COP25 is being held in Madrid, Spain from 2 – 13 December 2019.