The Weather Ready Pacific Programme of Investment, a landmark Pacific Island solution for Pacific Islands challenges to resiliency was magnified at the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States.
This Pacific designed initiative that will boost our Pacific Islands Meteorological Services in all ways possible was the feature of a special event in Antigua and Barbuda.
Through improved services, increased capacity, best quality technology available and consistent upgrades to ensure sustainability of quality the Weather Ready Pacific aims to provide our Pacific Islands people with the best information possible. With this knowledge, there is power that will enable our Pacific Islands people to prepare for all climate and weather-related events to come our way.
Designed “by us, for us” is a milestone achievement in that it was developed by over 14 Pacific Islands Meteorological Services that came together to find a way forward having faced many challenges to make this happen. The cost of this long-term investment currently stands at USD$191 million across ten years.
“Climate change will exacerbate extreme events. Economic losses from cyclones and flooding in the South Pacific region in 2020 were around USD$1 billion with at least 71 lives lost. Annual average losses are around USD$500 million.The improvement of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services can reduce disaster losses in developing countries at a benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of 4:1 to 36:1,” stated Fekita ‘Utoikamanu, Minister for Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change and Communications (MEIDECC) of the Kingdom of Tonga as she presented at a special event – “Resilient Prosperity through Pacific Islands solutions and Genuine Partnerships” held on the margins of the SIDS4 Conference.
“If the improved services and delivery of forecasts and warnings from our national forecasting centres could prevent just 5 percent of these losses, that represents around USD 250 million of positive return on investment. The human and financial costs of not acting are higher than the cost of acting through the proposed 10-year Program of Investment.”
The Weather Ready Pacific was endorsed by the Pacific Islands Leaders in 2021, the Weather Ready Pacific was then a focus of the 52nd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Pacific Partnerships for Prosperity that was launched – encouraging partners to invest in this.
First off the mark to demonstrate their commitment to this initiative was the Government of Australia having committed AUD$30 million (US$19.9 million) in 2023. This was followed by the Government of New Zealand committing NZD $20 million (US$12.23 million) this year, and the United Kingdom Met Office also committing GBP$300,000 (US$381,989) in technical support.
The Japanese International Cooperation Agency have committed to building the Regional Training and Instrument Calibration Centre to upskill our Pacific Islands Met Office staff.
“Locally led, vitally important because the way you engage your communities, the way you share information with them and the sort of messaging and support to assist local communities as they prepare for impending weather disasters is determined by local context and so you need to be the sole owners of this for it to be successful,” said Australia’s Ambassador for Climate Change, Kristin Tilley.
“Our Bureau of Meteorology are keen to support this and work with the Pacific at the technical level as much of the significant weather impacts that hit our region do so in the Pacific Islands and flow through to Australia. We see your successful implementation of Weather Ready Pacific as vitally important for Australia as well.”
The development of the Weather Ready Pacific Programme was necessary with our Pacific Islands highly vulnerable to extreme weather, hydrological and ocean events. Three of the Pacific Islands Members of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) are ranked as the top three of the most vulnerable in the world.
The Pacific Islands are now in a climate emergency, experiencing the impacts of climate change every day with many manifesting as extreme weather events. Given our Pacific Island circumstances, sometimes globally designed solutions do not suit our region. Over the past 30 years many different projects have tried to address the issues of observations, quality data to inform warnings and so much more. Given each project works in a silo, the success rate has not been sustainable.
This catalysed Pacific Islands Met Services to unite and design the Weather Ready Pacific Programme through the Pacific Meteorological Council.
“Our Met Directors realised they needed long-term planning, strategising and implementation of these. Driven by frustration that this couldn’t be done through existing mechanisms, both regional and bilateral, our Met Directors drew this up without thinking of resources – they focussed on what was needed to provide an excellent and essential service and product for our countries,” said Sefanaia Nawadra, Director General of SPREP.
“We’re pleased to see the Weather Ready Pacific now come to fruition as our partners are showing their commitment for our Resilient Pacific. At the end of the day, this will help build a stronger Pacific Islands people. We as host of the Pacific Met Desk fully stand behind this and look forward to the positive impacts for our people.”
The “Resilient prosperity through Pacific Islands solutions and genuine partnerships” on the Weather Ready Pacific, a Pacific-led solution for Pacific Islands resilience designed by us, for us was held on 29 May 2024 on the margins of the Fourth International Conference on Small Islands Developing States in Antigua and Barbuda.
Featured presenters included Fekita ‘Utoikamanu, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Tourism of the Kingdom of Tonga, Australias Ambassador for Climate Change Kristen Tilly and the Director General of SPREP Sefanaia Nawadra. The panel was moderated by Tagaloa Cooper, Director of Climate Change Resilience of SPREP.
The SIDS4 conference is held from 27 to 30 May 2024.
