Vaeno
Wayne Vigulu, Solomon
Islands National University; Richard
Levy, Earth
Sciences New Zealand, and Tim
Naish, Te
Herenga Waka — Victoria University of
Wellington
Pacific
leaders are gathering in Fiji and Tuvalu for a meeting
ahead of the annual global climate summit (COP31)
to be held in Turkey (also known as Türkiye) in
November.
The goal of the meeting is to amplify a
Pacific voice to raise the urgency of keeping global warming
as close to 1.5°C as possible.
This comes as a
recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report
confirmed the world is on track to cross 1.5°C within the
next five years, but also identified
pathways for returning to this temperature threshold as
quickly as possible.
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This matters for low-lying
atoll nations whose very existence depends on it. As the
UNEP report highlights, there are no safe futures above
1.5°C since every fraction of a degree changes sea-level
rise, adaptation costs and locked-in future risks.
Elevating Pacific priorities is also one of four
headline goals for the COP31 climate summit in Turkey.
Australia will be leading negotiations and Pacific leaders
will have an opportunity to bring their conclusions directly
to the table.
Keeping 1.5°C within
reach
The Pacific leaders’ meeting builds on
conclusions from the 5th Pacific Oceans
Pacific Climate Change Conference, which we attended in
Honiara, Solomon Islands, last month.
The science
presented there was unambiguous. Sea-level
rise, ocean warming, intensifying cyclones and limits to
adaptation are already reshaping
life across the region.
The tone of the
conference was serious, but not fatalistic. Pacific
leadership was instrumental in getting
1.5°C written into the Paris Agreement. The meeting
demonstrated that the same collective
voice continues.
Delegates expressed
frustration with existing climate-finance models, including
the Green
Climate Fund, which have complex
access processes, minimum project sizes and co-financing
requirements. This often means pledged money does
not reliably reach communities on the front
line.
The conference sought
backing for regional, Pacific-led finance options such
as the Pacific
Resilience Facility. This fund already comprises
pledges approaching US$173 million and Australia
and Fiji have now ratified it.
Delegates were
clear that climate finance should be accessible, directed by
Pacific priorities, reach communities and build stronger
institutions.
As one speaker put
it:
Transformative climate finance is not
defined by the size of the investment. It is defined by what
remains after the funding cycle
ends.
This principle also extends
to people. Delegates called for capacity building that
results in career pathways for Pacific scientists and
knowledge holders.
Elevating ocean-climate
connections
For Pacific peoples, climate change
arrives via the ocean, which is also essential for food
security, human health, resilience and attachment to place.
Many Pacific countries already have resilience
plans and tools in place. The next step is to connect them
across sectors and incorporate the ocean more strongly into
regional and global policy.
This should include
stronger links to global
programmes to monitor and restore biodiversity so the
ocean is not left in the gaps between international
processes.
The evidence of climate change impacts
in Pacific nations is already well established. Climate and
sea-level modelling, coastal science, ecosystem monitoring
and community-led planning are all underway to reduce
disaster risk and build resilience.
This is
alongside oral histories used to test hazard models and traditional
knowledge informing adaptation.
Bringing these
knowledge systems together is strengthening the evidence
base needed to combat climate change, provided it is done
with consent and protection for restricted knowledge.
It also elevates the work of Pacific-based
researchers on non-economic impacts such as irreplaceable
losses to language, culture and intergenerational
memory.
Amplifying Pacific voices and
leadership
Perhaps the strongest message from the
Honiara conference was a rejection of the framing that has
long dominated conversations about the Pacific and climate
change.
Conversation tends to focus on
vulnerability, smallness, isolation and limited resources.
But as Emma
Dunlop-Bennett, Pasifika assistant vice chancellor at
Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka, told
delegates:
We are not powerless in the face of
it. We are peoples of extraordinary
knowledge.
Agency is visible in Pacific
political leadership, communities, institutions and
researchers. But Pacific evidence must also travel into the
systems that shape global decisions – such as having
Pacific scientists contributing to Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change assessments and evidence flowing into
investment pipelines.
Solomon Islands Prime
Minister Matthew Wale put the challenge bluntly:
To the scientists and academics here, I say
produce knowledge that can travel beyond the journals and
conference halls. To policymakers, I say, create pathways
through which evidence changes laws, budgets and public
investment.
The greatest
opportunity identified in Honiara was the level of agreement
already present.
Political leaders, donors,
governments, scientists, communities and young people
converged on the same messages of keeping 1.5°C alive,
strengthening Pacific leadership, bringing communities into
decisions, fixing access to finance and turning knowledge
into implementation.
Last year, the International
Court of Justice reaffirmed the 1.5°C aspirational target
of the Paris Agreement and issued an advisory opinion
that countries have a legal duty to adopt and maintain
ambitious climate measures.
The initiative was led
by Pacific Island law
students. For small island states, which contribute a
fraction of global emissions yet face the gravest threats
from rising seas, the opinion offers both vindication and
leverage.
But the window to hold warming close to
1.5°C is closing rapidly. The rest of the world needs to
listen, act on reducing emissions with urgency and back
Pacific leadership with finance that fits regional
realities.
The authors acknowledge the
contributions of Tracey Vanugi at the Solomon Islands
National University, Vanda Faasoa-Chan Ting and Yvette
Kerslake at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional
Environmental Programme in Samoa, Noora Yukich at Haskoning
New Zealand, and the participants of the 5th Pacific Oceans
Pacific Climate Change Conference.
Vaeno
Wayne Vigulu, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture,
Forestry, and Fisheries, Solomon
Islands National University; Richard
Levy, General Manager Atmosphere and Climate, Earth
Sciences New Zealand, and Tim
Naish, Professor in Earth Sciences, Te
Herenga Waka — Victoria University of
Wellington
This article is
republished from The
Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the
original
article.
