Officials from across the region are meeting in Samoa this week to discuss Pacific responses to a changing climate. They meet with a renewed sense of urgency, as they consider shared positions for a global climate deal. That deal, expected to be finalised in Paris in just 200 days, will cement future international action on climate change. A bad deal will place our collective future in peril.
There could hardly be a greater reminder of the need to address climate change than Cyclone Pam. The category 5 supercyclone tore through Vanuatu – my island home – in March this year. Packing wind gusts of more than 300kph, Pam’s destruction was unprecedented. The storm destroyed the homes of 75,000 people, decimated food crops and crippled sorely needed infrastructure. And it wasn’t just Vanuatu either. Families in Tuvalu and Kiribati suffered devastating flooding as huge waves battered islands hundreds of kilometers from the storm’s centre. Communities in the Solomon Islands also lost their homes and crops.
Source: Matangi Tonga