Australia, New Zealand and the United States will be challenged to act on climate change when regional leaders meet for the Pacific Islands Forum in the Republic of Marshall Islands this week.
Trade, and climate policy are expected to be top talking points when the largest gathering of Pacific leaders gets underway in the capital of Majuro today.
Canoes, dancers and a village of solar-powered thatched huts will greet four hundred leaders and delegates from fifteen Pacific countries and thirteen partner states, in one of the largest events the nation of 53,000 people has ever hosted.
The Marshall Islands government will try to drive the conversation, with the Majuro Declaration recognising an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and calling for “climate leadership” from Pacific states and forum partners.
Marshall Islands President and Pacific Islands Forum Chair Christopher Loeak said climate change is the greatest threat facing his country and many others – and he hoped the declaration would be a “dynamic platform” for changing attitudes and policies in the region.
“We want the Majuro Declaration to demonstrate the Pacific’s climate leadership through the region’s accelerating transition to clean and renewable energy, and call on everyone, including the world’s biggest emitters, to do more,” he said.
“Waiting for a new global agreement in 2015 will not be enough. Accelerating climate action now, and well before 2020, is critical. With global leaders scheduled to come together on climate change in September 2014, now is the time to build our new wave of climate leadership.”
For the complete article, please see PacificScoop.
Colombia’s long-standing internal conflict and the country’s contribution to climate change share one common root cause: land concentration. Policies to strengthen access to land and to ensure sustainable land use might therefore hold the key to promoting peacebuilding in Colombia, while simultaneously reducing emissions.
As disasters wreak havoc all over South Asia, health impacts have increasingly emerged as a major concern for communities and governments in the region. It underscores the need for concerted efforts towards building synergies between the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, particularly now, in the post-disaster reconstruction phase, to ensure “building back better” and future disaster prevention.
In the Inner Mongolian county of Horinger, Northwestern China, afforestation efforts have transformed a barren, dusty landscape into a pine forest. Planting trees has diminished the sandstorms, boosted biodiversity and improved the environment generally. As the climate emergency worsens, the potential for planted trees to draw carbon out of the atmosphere is being re-examined. What can the world learn from the Chinese experience with afforestation?
Two events in August 2019 underlined the complexity of paving the way to a climate-neutral world: the publishing of the new IPCC report and the Amazon fires. Both events demand that climate diplomats move beyond a narrowed focus on energy in decarbonisation debates.