The Future Is Here

New report on climate change impacts in the Pacific highlights need for action now

An Oxfam report published today highlights that Pacific Islanders are already feeling the effects of climate change and need greater support to address the dramatic effects in the region.

‘The Future is Here: climate change in the Pacific’ documents how people are facing increasing food and water shortages, dealing with rising cases of malaria, coping with more frequent flooding and storm surges, losing land and being forced from their homes. The report argues that unless wealthy, developed countries like New Zealand and Australia take urgent action to curb emissions, some island nations face the very real threat of becoming uninhabitable.

Pacific leaders will raise the issue of climate change with Prime Minister John Key at the Pacific Islands Forum from August 4-7.

Oxfam New Zealand Executive Director Barry Coates said with only months to go until the crucial UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, it was clear New Zealand needed to show Pacific leaders it was willing to do its fair share to address one of the most pressing challenges in the region.

“Climate change has the potential to affect almost every issue linked to poverty and development in the Pacific. Without immediate action 50 years of development gains in poor countries will be permanently lost,” said Coates. “It’s important for the Government to show its neighbours at the Pacific Islands Forum that New Zealand is serious about our responsibility for climate change and our commitment to help vulnerable communities deal with it," he added.

The report details how Pacific Islanders are already adapting to their changing climate. Fijians, for example, are taking steps to ‘climate-proof’ their villages by trialling salt-resistant varieties of staple foods, planting mangroves and native grasses to halt coastal erosion, protecting fresh water wells from saltwater intrusion and relocating homes and community buildings away from vulnerable coastlines.

Elsewhere, the Malaita provincial government in the Solomon Islands is looking for land to resettle people from low-lying outer atolls, while people living in the Federated States of Micronesia are facing food and water shortages and moving to higher ground.

The report argues that the fairest and most cost-effective way of dealing with climate change is to ensure the most extreme impacts are avoided altogether. As the two wealthy countries in the region with high per capita pollution, New Zealand and Australia must prevent further climate damage to the Pacific by adopting a strong mid-term target for greenhouse gas reductions “ at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 “ and urging other developed countries to do the same.

“The lives, homes, livelihoods, food and water of many Pacific communities are under threat. These people have done almost nothing to cause the climate crisis. New Zealand has a responsibility to act now by reducing our own emissions, helping our neighbours adapt to the climate change impacts they are already experiencing, and supporting their development on a low-carbon pathway.

Not only is it in our best interests, it will help create a safer, more sustainable and more peaceful future for the Pacific,” said Coates.

Editors notes:

The report ‘The Future is Here: climate change in the Pacific’ is available at:
http://www.oxfam.org.nz/resources/the%20future%20is%20here-oxfam%20report-july09.pdf

On Saturday August 8 from 1-2:30pm, Oxfam hosts Voices of the Vulnerable, a panel of speakers including Pacific Islanders from Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Federated States of Micronesia, who will share compelling personal stories of how climate change is affecting their homelands. The event will be in the Soundings Theatre at Te Papa in Wellington, along with screenings of a series of films called Sisters on the Planet, which document women from The Carteret Islands, Uganda, Bangladesh, Australia and the UK who are taking action on climate change.

ENDS

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