By The Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC, Commonwealth Secretary-General
It is an undisputable fact that Pacific islanders face an existential threat from climate change.
To a far more immediate degree than people living in most other parts of
the world, inhabitants of low-lying atolls and archipelagos in the
Pacific have to worry about losing their security and livelihoods, and
even the very existence of the place they call home.
Some Pacific nations have seen sea-level rise four times greater than
the global average. It is estimated rising sea levels could by 2100
literally engulf thousands of islands in the region, meaning they will
become uninhabitable due to salinization of water, recurrent flooding
and infrastructural destruction. Without a focus on concerted
international efforts, millions of people in this region could be forced
to leave the homes of their ancestors to seek safer lives elsewhere.
The Pacific is the Commonwealth region most vulnerable to climate
change. It faces intense variations in temperatures, extreme storms,
rising sea levels, and is also highly vulnerable to earthquakes, floods,
tidal surges, landslides, droughts, forest fires, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
Last year, a number of sudden natural disasters again affected thousands
of people in the region and decimated the economies of several
countries.
Tropical Cyclone Gita struck Tonga in February affecting 80 per cent of
the country’s total population and causing infrastructural damage
totalling $164 million.
In the same month, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit the nation with
aftershocks rattling Papua New Guinea, affecting nearly half a million
people and displacing 26,000 across western parts of the country.
Pacific Island nations are scattered across a vast area, and are home to
only 10 million people, eight million of whom live in Papua New Guinea.
Yet proportionally, in terms of victims per 100,000 inhabitants, the
number of fatalities and victims of natural disasters in Pacific nations
ranks among the highest in global terms.
Pacific Island nations match this by being among the most committed and
co-ordinated in their pre-disaster preparedness and planning for
post-disaster recovery, with governmental and international partnerships
mobilising successfully to raise resilience in the region.
Despite these co-ordinated efforts, the adaptation and mitigation
requirements remain challenging because of the sheer volume of resources
required to adapt to climate change, and in particular to cope with or
contain rising sea levels.
It was to assist with this that the Commonwealth Finance Access Hub was
established in 2016. The facility helps small and vulnerable states to
make successful applications to secure the funding they need for
projects and programmes that mitigate the impact of climate change.
To date, the hub has helped countries access $25.7 million, with a
further $367 million in the pipeline. It does so by embedding long-term
specialists within ministries to provide expert advice and to build
local capacity for the longer term.
The complexity of disaster finance makes it particularly challenging for
Pacific Island nations to tap into available funding. Information
available on disaster finance tends to be fragmented, and donors and
lenders have widely varying procedures and requirements that have to be
navigated if funding is to be unlocked.
To overcome these barriers and to help create a more integrated approach
to accessing funds, the Commonwealth will soon launch a new disaster
risk finance portal. The web-based platform is designed to make it
easier for capacity-constrained governments to gain access to the
funding they so urgently need. The portal will be ready for a preview
when our annual Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting convenes in
Washington DC this October.
As well as helping governments to find what disaster finance instruments
are available, the portal will assist them in identifying those that
are most suited to their particular needs and circumstances. A
one-stop-shop, with information collated from a range of sources and
clearly presented, will save governments time and effort, and help them
make more informed decisions on disaster preparedness and response.
Tools such as these, together with many other projects and programmes
and advocacy strategies, are components in a suite of support offered by
the Commonwealth collectively so that all our members are better
equipped and ready to cope with disasters, particularly those related to
climate change.
The ocean is central to the life, livelihood and culture of most
communities in the Pacific, with entire economies and populations
dependent on fisheries for their survival.
Yet this invaluable resource is under serious threat from climate
change, pollution, rising sea levels and over-fishing. The ocean is
warming and becoming more acidic, causing coral bleaching and reducing
biodiversity – worsening the health of marine and coastal ecosystems.
It is to tackle these pressing concerns that the Commonwealth Blue
Charter was last year adopted by the leaders of our 53 member nations,
and committing them collectively and individually to take bold,
co-ordinated action to protect our shared ocean from the effects of
climate change and marine pollution.
To date, twelve countries – including Fiji and Vanuatu – have stepped
forward to be champions on nine key ocean issues which will help sustain
the health of the one-third of the world’s national coastal waters
which are within the jurisdiction of our member countries.
Collectively the Commonwealth aims to reduce the number of people being
forced to migrate or being pushed into poverty and food insecurity by
recurring natural disasters and whose opportunities to share the
benefits of inclusive and sustainable progress are impaired when
economic growth falters.
Yet time is running out for limiting global warming to 1.5˚C or 2˚C. The moment to act is now.
Urgent multilateral action is needed by governments around the world to
meet the terms of the Paris Climate Agreement. As part of this, the
scaling up and broader use of tools such as debt swaps and blended
finance could help quickly to overcome the gaps in financing that is
needed for climate change adaptation.
We need to combine this with collaborative action by the stronger and
more resilient alongside the less secure and more vulnerable to build
defences and limit the detrimental impact of natural disasters which can
strike anywhere and at any time.
The nations of the Pacific region may be in the frontline, but we are
all under threat, and it is a battle we can only win together and
through concerted action.