PINA

As the World Leaders Summit opened on day two of COP26, UN chief António Guterres sent a stark message to the international community. “We are digging our own graves”, he said, referring to the addiction to fossil fuels which threatens to push humanity and the planet, to the brink, through unsustainable global heating. It was a grey and windy morning,...

Pacific Island delegations at COP26 have a “home away from home” within the venue. Known as the Moana Blue Pacific, this hub will support our 140 island delegates as they strategise and plan across the two weeks of climate change negotiations. The Twenty-Sixth Conference of the Parties to the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) is reported to have...

By Pita Ligaiula in Glasgow Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Henry Puna says the world must act now to keep 1.5degrees alive”. Speaking to PACNEWS in Glasgow, Puna said Forum Island Countries (FICs) are calling for more ambitious targets from major polluting nations to ensure that carbon emission cuts keep temperature rise at no more than 1.5 degrees. “That is really the...

By Pita Ligaiula in Glasgow Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Henry Puna has welcomed the new climate policy announced by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Morrison announced last week that Australia will join the developed world in pursuing a net zero emissions by 2050 but its formal target for 2030 remains unchanged - a reduction in 26-28 percent in emissions Forum...

By Pita Ligaiula in Glasgow Pacific nations are on the frontlines of climate change because of rising sea levels risk having the smallest voice at the crucial COP26 talks this week due to COVID-19 pandemic. PACNEWS understands only three Pacific leaders from Fiji, Tuvalu and Palau are in Glasgow this week for climate change talks. Low-lying Pacific islands are being battered by...

The first day of November is also the first day of the South Pacific cyclone season. Last season taught humanitarian and emergency personnel that they need to be prepared to respond as early as possible. When severe tropical cyclone Yasa hit Fiji last December as a Category 5, it was the earliest in the season that a cyclone of that...

The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda and the Prime Minister of Tuvalu today signed a historic accord allowing for litigation before international courts. This move will allow for a legal path to address the severe damage to Small Island States caused by climate change. The agreement establishes a Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law, creating...

Delegates from the Marshall Islands warned today that their nation could vanish beneath the Pacific Ocean within 50 years if nothing serious is done to combat global warming. Climate envoy Tina Stege said that the islands were already feeling the effects of climate change, including longer and more intense droughts and rising sea levels, and she urged world leaders to...

Following a series of reports and studies warning that urgent action is needed to keep the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global average temperature increases to 1.5C within reach, the United Nations Climate Change Conference opened today with the key aims of raising ambition on all fronts and finalising the agreement’s implementation guidelines. “We are extremely grateful to the Government...

Palau's President Sunangel Whipps Jr. has appealed to the world leaders to take “radical actions” to combat the devastating impacts of climate change to the Pacific’s livelihoods, security, and wellbeing, translating into economic losses for nations. On Tuesday, President Whipps who is in the United States on his way to the climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland said the efforts to...