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A monthly e-bulletin of activities and assistance from the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme to its member countries

A monthly e-bulletin of activities and assistance from the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme to its member countries.

A monthly e-bulletin of activities and assistance from the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme to its member countries.

Le projet régional PEBACC+ (Pacific Ecosystem-Based Adaptation to Climate Change Plus) vise à renforcer la résilience des écosystèmes, des économies et des populations par la mise en oeuvre démonstrative, la planification et l’institutionnalisation de l’approche de l’Adaptation fondée sur les Ecosystèmes (AfE) et les Solutions fondées sur la Nature (SfN) pour l’adaptation au changement climatique.

The Pacific Ecosystem-based Adaptation to Climate Change Plus/Phase 2 (PEBACC+) Project seeks to strengthen the resilience of ecosystems, economies, and communities to the impacts of climate change in Fiji, New Caledonia, Wallis-and-Futuna, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. The PEBACC+ Project will develop, sustain, and institutionalise ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) to climate change in these five countries and territories.

Managing Invasive Species to Create a Great Green Line of Defense for the Pacific. Controlling invasive species is one of the most effective tool for restoring island resilience.

The Asia and Pacific region is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Unabated warming could significantly undo previous achievements of economic development and improvements of living standards. At the same time, the region has both the economic capacity and weight of influence to change the present fossil-fuel based development pathway and curb global emissions. This report sheds light on the regional implications of the latest projections of changes in climate conditions over Asia and the Pacific. The assessment concludes that, even under the Paris consensus scenario in which global warming is limited to 1.5°C to 2°C above preindustrial levels, some of the land area, ecosystems, and socioeconomic sectors will be significantly affected by climate change impacts, to which policy makers and the investment community need to adapt to. However, under a Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario, which will cause a global mean temperature rise of over 4°C by the end of this century, the possibilities for adaptation are drastically reduced. Among others, climate change impacts such as the deterioration of the Asian “water towers”, prolonged heat waves, coastal sea-level rise and changes in rainfall patterns could disrupt ecosystem services and lead to severe effects on livelihoods which in turn would affect human health, migration dynamics and the potential for conflicts. This assessment also underlines that, for many areas vital to the region’s economy, research on the effects of climate change is still lacking.

Climate change exacerbates the magnitude and impacts of climate variability and some natural hazards. The existence of some Pacific Island countries (PICs) is threatened by climate change. Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) are highly exposed to a range of natural hazards of hydro-meteorological origin (such as cyclones, droughts, landslides and floods) and geological origin (including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis). These hazards often lead to disasters, which affect thousands of people and exacerbate existing development challenges in the region. Climate change predictions identify changes for the Pacific including an increase in extreme hot days and warm nights, extreme rainfall events, intensity of tropical cyclones in the South Pacific, sea level rise and ocean acidification. Climate change is increasing the risks from weather related disasters and posing new impacts to the region. Climate change impacts also cause progressive long-term degradation to the natural environment, to critical ecosystems (e.g. coral reefs), and to social and economic systems, resulting in loss and damage to the system upon which Pacific Island communities depend for their subsistence and livelihoods.

Pacific Island countries and territories already face a range of development challenges due to their specific geographic and socio-economic characteristics, and their generally high exposure to natural hazards. The projected changes to the climate of the Pacific Island region over the coming decades present another challenging dimension that the region will need to grapple with. These changes could compromise the very ability of Pacific communities to meet their economic development needs.