By Ben Kedoga, NBC Radio, PNG
5 July 2013, Nadi, Fiji - Papua New Guinea like other Pacific Island countries has expressed its satisfaction with the outcomes achieved during 2013 Pacific Climate Change Roundtable.
Senior Policy Analyst with Papua New Guinea’s Office of Climate Change, OCCD, Emmajil Bogari Ahai said they are ready to return back to the country and use the information and resources gained at the 2013 PCCR to add on the work they have been doing.
“We still need to coordinate with the Government, local partners and those in the region to really benefit from regional assistance being made available by various partners both within the region and abroad and we are thankful that the 2013 PCCR has created an avenue for us to interact and also network with important partners,” Bogari said.
She says the PCCR is one avenue where all the Pacific island countries can be able to really interact and create networks to access support for programs back in Papua New Guinea.
The OCCD senior analyst says, among other things, they will be looking at immediately when they return to the country is to address the country’s coordination mechanism, and doing more work on the loss and damage of the effects of climate change and generally the country’s preparation for upcoming regional and international meetings.
However, she expressed the need for a team made up officers from different divisions within OCCD in PNG to attend future PCCRs.
“We are from the Adaptation Division of OCCD so we can talk strongly on issues when it comes to discussions on adaptation, but it future roundtable we should have representatives from the Mitigation Division so that we have a well balanced team attending the PCCR,” Bogari said.
But like other Pacific Island countries capacity and funding to attend such important meetings is a great concern.
Similar sentiments were shared by Luanne Losi, who also works as a Senior Policy Analyst with PNG’s OCCD.
She says by attending the meeting they are able to learn from what other Pacific Island countries are doing in their responses to climate change issues with the support that they get from the PNG government and other partners.
But like her colleague, she sees a big need for PNG to have a cross section of people in a country team that should be attending such meetings in the future.
“Its common sense that we cannot do everything by ourselves, we need the support of all our stakeholders, including the government, to really represent Papua New Guinea in future roundtables,” Losi said.