The Pacific region is on the front line of climate change. Its low-lying islands risk being swamped by rising sea levels and their inhabitants forced to emigrate. In June, exceptionally high tides coupled with storm surges flooded parts of the Marshall Islands capital, Majuro. The rising waters topped the city sea walls. Some islanders were forced to evacuate their homes and a state of disaster was declared.
For the Pacific people, weather extremes are not about a distant future, they have become the new normal. Heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising oceans are the new reality of an ever-warming world. Scientists have been warning for years that we will have to deal with more severe, more changeable, more unpredictable weather.
Europe and the Pacific region must work together to fight climate change. This will be my main priority during my participation in the Pacific Islands Forum, being held early this month in the Marshall Islands.
And we have showed what our joint efforts can achieve. At the UN climate conference in Durban in 2011, Europe and the Pacific region got all countries to agree that we need a new global climate deal by 2015, as well as a process to raise the level of global ambition also in the shorter terms before 2020.
Europe will continue to assist the Pacific region in its efforts to adapt to the changing climate. Europe is the world's leading provider of climate finance and, despite severe economic constraints, we succeeded in delivering just over 7.3 billion ($12.4 billion) in "fast start" funding to the most vulnerable developing countries in 2010-2012, slightly beating our own pledge.
For the complete article, please see The New Zealand Herald.
A new publication on SDGs and foreign policy, prepared by researchers at the German think tank adelphi, highlights a phenomenon I call this the ‘Great Splintering’ – the fracturing of political will for collective action on the global stage. This article outlines five steps we could take to revive multilateralism.
Satellite analysis shows ‘vanishing’ lake has grown since 1990s, but climate instability is driving communities into the arms of Boko Haram and Islamic State. Climate change is aggravating conflict around Lake Chad, but not in the way experts once thought, according to new research.
At a meeting of the Arctic Council, secretary of state Mike Pompeo refused to identify global warming as a threat, instead hailing an oil rush as sea ice melts. The US refused to join other Arctic countries in describing climate change as a key threat to the region, as a two-day meeting of foreign ministers drew to a close on Tuesday in Ravaniemi, Finland.
Around 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihood, and about 2.6 billion people rely directly on agriculture. Deforestation, land degradation, and unsustainable management of ecosystems threaten those livelihoods and may contribute to resource-related conflicts and social unrest.