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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

Vulnerable ecosystems-• Sea?level rise • Increasing temperatures • Changes in rainfall • Ocean acidification • Coral reefs • Increased storm activity Overall in Melanesia the central mountains of New Guinea and the coral reefs and ocean life in the outer islands of Papua New Guinea most impacted. In the wider Pacific inundation is a major threat.