Background
The Pacific Climate Change Portal (PCCP) has been developed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and its partners to ensure that climate change-related information and tools are readily accessible to the region in a coordinated and user-friendly manner. The Portal development was approved by the Pacific Climate Change Roundtable (PCCR) and subsequent SPREP meetings (2009; 2011).
The portal also provides a platform for other institutions and governments in the Pacific region to share information, by providing a Regional Search function that indexes and links to other information repositories such as the Pacific Disaster Network and other regional and national portals.
The Pacific Climate Change Portal aims to improve and strengthen understanding of climate change issues by a greater number of people in the Pacific region. Improved access to information will strengthen communication and collaboration to cope with climate change regionally and locally. This portal is also anticipated to leverage more climate change initiatives and innovation in Pacific Island Countries and Territories.
The major target groups expected to use the portal are national stakeholders (PICTs), regional stakeholders (CROP agencies) and development partners. A broader audience, however, is not excluded.
Objectives
- Improve timely access to and delivery of climate change information and tools
- Communicate and promote climate change challenges, issues and activities in the region and globally
- Act as a hub for climate change information and knowledge sharing
- Assist decision makers through the provision of information concerning climate change adaptation and mitigation
- Identify gaps in current programme activities
- Facilitate enhanced cooperation on climate change adaptation projects in the region.
Governing Bodies
In February 2012, the Advisory Committee was formed comprising of partners, PIFS, SPC, USP and SPREP with the mandate to advise on the strategic direction of the portal. The Technical Sub Committee was also formed to provide technical guidance during portal development.
Partnerships
GIZ CCCPIR
The PCCP has benefited from GIZ’s funding and technical support to the development of Educational Resources, Donors; Funds Database, PIFACC monitoring and evaluation and Country Profiles.
PACIFIC ICLIM PROJECT
In April 2014, SPREP and Griffith University formed a partnership to deliver the Pacific iCLIM project (funded by the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through its Australian Aid program), with the aim of further developing and implementing a regional approach to climate change data and information management in the Pacific. This partnership resulted in the PCCP upgrade, a number of national climate change portal upgrades, a set of regional climate change Information and Knowledge Management Guidelines and associated training and capacity building activities.
For more information on Pacific iCLIM visit https://www.griffith.edu.au/research/research-excellence/pacific-iclim. Upgrade to Version 2.0
In May 2016, the SPREP launched the Pacific Climate Change Portal (PCCP) Version 2.0. The new improved features will enhance the user experience and content discovery through the use of a newly-developed, predfined list of climate change topics used to tag the various content types. It also provides more user-friendly user interfaces.
Features
- Regional Search for Documents and Projects which provides a single access point for a range of other climate change resources across the Pacific, including the Pacific Disaster Network (PDN), Pacific Solution Exchange and the Fiji (under development), Tonga and Vanuatu National Climate Change Portals. This is achieved by indexing the metadata from these sites along with the PCCP.
- Donors and Funds Database – searchable database of funds and associated donors relevant for the Pacific.
- Climate Change Projects Database – searchable database of past, current and proposed climate change programmes and projects in the Pacific.
- Documents & More Library - searchable collection of over 1000 documents and other resources relevant to the Pacific.
- Country Profiles - summary of climate change information and initiatives in 15 PICTs.
- Education Resources – searchable resources for education practitioners.
- Climate Tools - searchable database of online tools that can be used in climate change planning and decision-making.
Currently in development are a climate finance decision support tool to assist countries in accessing the Green Climate Fund, and an adaptation pathways tool to assist PICTs in adaptation planning. These new tools will be made available via the portal.
PCCP Topics Vocabulary
The PCCP Topics Vocabulary is a controlled list of keywords (a thesaurus) that was developed specifically for use within the PCCP. It is used to classify or 'tag' information (documents, projects, news, events, tools) according to its theme(s) or subject area(s), and to allow users to browse or search for information in the PCCP according to its subject matter.
The Vocabulary consists of twenty, top-level topics, each of which is subdivided into narrower topics. It attempts to cover all themes and subject areas relevant to climate change and disaster risk management in the Pacific, and to use standard terms, in common use by climate change and DRM practitioners, to describe these themes. Because climate change and disaster risk management affect so many sectors of society and the environment, the scope of the Vocabulary is very broad. Many terms were taken from existing vocabularies and glossaries, in particular UNBIS, UNISDR Terminology on DRR, AGROVOC, GEMET & IPCC Glossaries, and the PCCP team is indebted to the creators and publishers of these resources.
Version 3.0 of the Vocabulary also contains a definition for each term, to assist users to understand and assign terms accurately. Definition sources are included. The complete Vocabulary is available from the PCCP Documents Library at https://www.pacificclimatechange.net/document/pacific-climate-change-portal-topics-controlled-vocabulary.
The Vocabulary was created as part of the Griffith University / SPREP Pacific iClim Project, and with the assistance of and input from members of the Pacific Climate Change Portal Advisory Committee.
Contributing Content
The PCCP team welcomes input from interested parties. If your organisation is involved in climate change projects or research in the Pacific, and creates data or information that could be shared via the PCCP, the team would like to hear from you. If you would like to contribute information on a regular basis you can apply to become a Regional Content Editor. This means you will be given access to create new Projects, Documents, Calendar Events, News or Announcements.
It is not necessary to provide full text documents or datasets on the PCCP. The PCCP can point to data and information stored on your organisation's website or online repository. The PCCP can also alert people to information that is only available offline (e.g. in print form, on CD, on an organisational intranet), or by negotiation.
For further information please see the contact details under "Contact Us".
PaCCIN Mailing List
SPREP maintains an electronic mailing list, the Pacific Climate Change Information Network (PaCCIN). This list provides up-to-date information on Pacific climate change issues, including SPREP News, SPREP Climate Change Matters newsletter, COP updates, job vacancies, short courses and press releases. To subscribe to the mailing list or the RSS feed visit http://lyris.sprep.org:81/read/about/?forum=pacific_climate_infonet&sb=1
Contact Us
If you would like more information on the PCCP, are interested in contributing content or becoming a Regional Content Editor, please contact Makelesi Gonelevu, SPREP Knowledge Manager, on email [email protected].