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The Copenhagen Accord declared that deep cuts in global emissions are required “so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius”. The Accord called for an assessment that would consider strengthening the long-term goal including “temperature rises of 1.5 degrees”. Since December 2009, 140 countries1 have associated themselves with the Copenhagen Accord. Of these, 85 countries have pledged to reduce their emissions or constrain their growth up to 2020.

There is now global consensus that climate change is a real and significant threat strongly related to anthropogenic causes. The implications are arguably even more relevant for the Asia-Pacific than other regions given its high population levels, large numbers of poor and otherwise vulnerable people and the richness of biodiversity and ecology among its highly diverse countries. It is also a region with some of the greatest potential – both in terms of carbon sequestration capacity and the human resources – to contribute to both mitigation and adaptation efforts. One of the key areas of focus on the current international climate change stage is the role of forests. The significance of this single factor in mitigating, or potentially hastening the process of climate change, is coming to be fully realized. In light of this, and the particularly close linkage between communities in the Asia-Pacific region and the forests upon which many depend, it is imperative that forests play a central role in efforts to manage or adapt to climate change.

For the tourism component, the 4 Pacific countries where tourism is in absolut and/or relative figures the most important economic sector had been preselected: Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa and Palau. After having assessed during the preparatory mission the current situation of tourism and its future projection in these countries, it became clear that, since tourism is mainly driven by the private sector, communities and assisting NGOs, also the the focus of climate change adaptation would habe to be on those partners plus government entities wherever they play a role to direct tourism development.

The effects of climate change require strong actions from policy-makers, extension officers and communities to strengthen resilience to the expected negative impacts. Sea-level rise, changes in precipitation patterns and other effects cannot be avoided, but there are many means to reduce the vulnerability of communities. To equip the actors in this adaptation process with the right tools, the Regional Programme on Adaptation to Climate Change in the Pacific Island Region is setting up a knowledge management system including a database on climate change. A collection of best practices from the region and other parts of the world will be part of this venture. The collection of best practices from the region will be completed by the thematic teams of SPC Land Resources Division. This desk-study gathers examples from across the globe.

Coastal communities in the Pacific are without doubt some of the most vulnerable to climate change effects in the world. The limited land area in some countries and low profile of atolls (many only 3m above sea level at high tide) exacerbate the vulnerability of these locations, and the governments and people of these countries have limited capacities and resources to cope at all levels.

The energy component design of CCCPIR has benefited from various excellent and frank assessments of what has been going right as well as wrong in the energy sector in this region, what should be done in terms of future guiding principles, and the need for changing framework conditions to overcome barriers1 . The energy component will focus on three key areas towards a sustainable, socially fair, inclusive and climate change relevant indigenous based future energy management for sustainable economic development. The first key area outputs will appraise the annual incremental and aggregated incremental costs to achieve very ambitious or even unrealistic benchmarks of national energy policy plans for the year 2010 - 2020 and beyond. Who is paying and who can afford to pay? Jointly working on the answers with as many stakeholders as possible should increase awareness that the present fragmented donor driven and project oriented piecemeal approach becomes too unsustainable and costly for the PICs and donors.

Within the context of an additional commitment of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for the ongoing ACCPIR Project GTZ commissioned an appraisal mission in order to investigate the options for extending it regionally and thematically. The regional scope of the mission includes all independent member states of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC). The thematic scope of the mission focused on climate change adaptation strategies for land- and marine based natural resources, adaptation options in the tourism sector and with regard to mitigation potentials to renewable energies as well as energy efficiency issues. Despite constraints in terms of time covering the whole South Pacific region, the regional institutional framework being under “reconstruction” and, the multitude of, hardly manageable donor initiatives in the field of climate change the team finally was confident that sufficient information was available to assess the climate change context of the region and to come up with a proposal which adds value to ongoing and planned climate change activities at the regional and national level.

We, Leaders, Ministers and Representatives of Governments participating in the Tarawa Climate Change Conference held on 10th November 2010, recognizing that, climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time and that there is an urgent need for more and immediate action to be undertaken to address the causes and adverse impacts of climate change

The preparation of this Joint National Action Plan (JNAP) on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management (CCA & DRM) was funded by the Global Environment Facility through the United Nations Development Programme, ACP-EU Natural Disaster Facility through the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).

Participants from governments, international and regional organizations and institutions, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, civil society, farmers and the scientific community, met at the Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change in The Hague, Netherlands from 31 October to 5 November 2010 to develop a roadmap for action.