Increasingly positive steps have been taken toward reaching a global deal on climate change in the lead up to the UN-brokered climate summit currently underway in Cancun, Mexico. Hillary Clinton's recent visit to the South Pacific, as well as regional initiatives such as the Kiribati climate summit and the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment meeting, have been encouraging and may signal the starting point to brokering a multi-national positive declaration on climate change in Cancun.
The breakdown of negotiations at the Copenhagen Summit (see From the Pacific Islands to Copenhagen - Outcomes from the Copenhagen Summit) were a blow to many small South Pacific nations, as the threat posed by climate change continues to be extremely tangible to countries such as Kiribati, Tokelau and Tuvalu.
During her recent visit to the region, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged US US$21 million in support of climate change mitigation efforts across the South Pacific. Senator Clinton further announced that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) will open an office in Fiji, as a sign of its regional commitment to tackling the issue of climate change head on. It has been 15 years since the last USAID office operated out of Fiji.
Although critics have suggested that the decision to open a USAID office in Fiji has more to do with countering Chinese aid, it is nonetheless an immense opportunity to fund crucial programs to help counter the effect of climate change.
Other regional initiatives have also been encouraging.
A three-day Climate Change Conference was held in November in Kiribati's capital Tarawa, which was attended by over 20 nations including delegates from China, Brazil, India, Australia and New Zealand. The conference resulted in the signature of the Ambo Declaration, a non-binding agreement that outlines some of the objectives to be achieved at the Cancun summit.
The declaration called for more and immediate action to be undertaken to address the causes and adverse impacts of climate change. Although its content does not pioneer any new ground, it can nonetheless be seen as a positive step toward a global agreement, as it secured the approval of some notable resistors to climate change discussions, most significantly China and India.
The President of Kiribati Anote Tong was pleased with the result of the summit however also highlighted his disappointment at the USA, England and Canada for choosing not to be part of the declaration, instead opting for observer status.
Capping off a busy month for regional climate issues, Fiji hosted the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment Meeting in Suva. The meeting was a joint initiative between the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC). The meeting focused on assessing the progress made in collecting building, infrastructure, population and crop data to determine the level of catastrophe risk faced by Pacific island countries1.
Footnotes
1.http://www.sopac.org/index.php/media-releases/1-latest-news/224-pacific-catastrophe-risk-assessment-meeting-november-18-19-suva-fiji
Winners of the 2010 Lawyers Weekly e.law Asia Pacific Box Breaker of the Year Award and the 2009 NSW Exporter of the Year Award
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