Lessons for Future Action Conference 23-26 May 2011, Samoa

The four day conference has brought together practitioners, policy makers and researchers from the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the West Indian Ocean to examine how lessons learned today can inform climate change adaptation and future disaster risk management in Small Island Developing States.

The following information is coverage of presentations publicized from the first three days of the conference.

Click on the highlight text to view the presentations.

1. Information and Awareness Raising

Chair: Roger McLean, IPCC Lead Coordinating Author, Small Islands

Topics of presentations:

- Awareness raising – understanding the risk

-  Community perceptions of and responses to climate change and risk

- Baseline data needs – what we need to attribute climate change

- Underpinning science and modeling tools

- Communicating the science

Baseline Data Needs For Climate Change Attribution Studies, Leonard Nurse.

What Science is needed or must be provided to facilitate Information and Awareness Building? Michael Taylor.

Information and awareness raising, Paul Hopler

2. National Planning and Policy Frameworks

Chair: David Sheppard, Director of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme [SPREP]

Topics of presentations:

International and regional frameworks, national policy and planning frameworks
 - Do national policy and planning frameworks meet emerging   needs?

 - Developing nationally relevant policy frameworks for CCA and  DRR

 - What role does CCA and DRR play in core policy development?

DRR and CCA synergies and opportunities at the national level

- What have we learned from joint national planning?

The social and economic value of CCA and DDR at the national and local level

National Initiatives for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction, Albert Williams

National Planning and Policy Framework: Lessons from the Caribbean, presented by Ken Leslie

CCA and DRR IN SIDs Lessons for Future Action Conference, Netatua Pelesikoti

Social and economic values of CCA and DRR Making informed choices at national, sectoral and local levels, Padma Lal

Joint National Action on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management, Sione Fulvai

3. Community Based Responses to CCA and DRR

Chair: Frank Wickham, Solomon Islands

Topics of presentations:

Application of demand driven and bottom up experience and planning

Sustainable development and building resilience for DRR and CCA (including adaptive capacity and traditional responses)

DDR and CCA synergies and opportunities at the local level (including lessons learned from joint national planning)

Linking national planning to local and sub-national levels

-          Scaling up to national, regional and global support

-       Sustainability considerations of CCA and DRR

Sustainable Development and Building Resilience for DRR and CCA, Sione Faka’osi

Exemplars of Resilience, Monifa Fiu

Linking national planning to local and sub-national levels Scaling up to national, regional, and global support, Indi Mclymont-Lafayette

Strengthening Adaptive Capacity in Choiseul, Solomon Islands, Robyn James

 4. Strategies and On-Ground Options

Chair: Leonard Nurse, IPCC Lead Editor for SIDS

Topics of presentations:

What works on the ground

-  Effective adaptation options – what’s the best way to provide support?

 - Sectoral approaches to risk management

 - Adaptation/Renewable energy                    opportunities

 -  Actual experiences with CCA and DRR – challenges and opportunities

What combination of CCA and DRR deliver the most benefits?  (public/private partnerships, those that integrate DRR, CCA and economic development, community involvement)

Pacific Conference of Churches on Climate Change Adaptation and Risk Reduction, Rev. Ikani Taliai Tolu

Lessons learn, and progress to date,  Simpson Abraham

Climate Change Strategies, In-water Options, Melanie McField

The Energy Sector as Generator of Financial Resources to support Adaptation and the Foundation of Sustainable Development: Innovation, Pipe Dreams or Madness, Al Binger

5. Capacity Development

Chair: Edward Green, Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre

Topics of presentations:

What is capacity development and how is it best developed?

Regional responses and needs of the smallest countries

Developing business plans and project proposals

Accessing resources

Lessons for Future Action Conference, Franklin McDonald

Capacity Development for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction, Claire Bernard

Observations on change, disruption, and challenges, Frank Wickham

Climate Change Resilience, Oxfam/Care

Regional Response and Needs of Small Islands, Leonard Nurse

6.  Lessons for Future Action

Chair: Rob Kay,  Coastal Zone Management (Australia)

Presentation: summary of outcomes - Lessons for futureaction, Jo Mummery

Official urges quick adoption of global agreement on climate change

by Ernie Seon - Caribbean Media Corporation

Apia, Samoa - The science advisor to the Alliance of Small Islands States (AOSIS), Dr. Albert Binger, is urging countries to quickly adopt a global agreement which will spare small island states the agony of having to deal with the effects of more intense hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Dr Binger, who is on secondment from the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Center (CCCCC), told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that while discussions are taking place on climate change, many are unaware of the urgency of the situation.



Far right - Dr Al Binger



“Essentially we have five years to set a global agreement to keep the emissions to where we see we can survive.

“It seems like in all the talk people don’t seem to recognise the urgency involved in the situation. There are 2,000 days or five years to actually get an implementation to meet a window to keep the temperature below 1.5 degrees.

“If it goes above 1.5 degrees a lot of countries especially those in the Caribbean and Pacific will be in serious trouble,” he warned.

Dr. Binger is among a number of climate change and environmental experts attending a four day conference on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in Small Island Development states which opened here on Monday.

“The Lessons for Future Action Conference” will allow delegates to share experiences and lessons learned in relation to climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction among Small Island Developing States (SIDS) drawing on experiences from Australia and other countries.

He told CMC that collectively most small island states would feel the effects of serious flooding, drought and a lot more intense hurricanes in states like the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Suriname and Guyana.

“We are already half way there, we are at .8 degrees and with all the hell that’s going on, you can imagine what another doubling can do,” Dr Binger remarked.

The AOSIS official whose role is to provide information on development projects, technologies and strategies to deal with climate change and sustainable development issues said that while the science and its impacts are known, the time factor isn’t.

“The development of science only last year gave us enough information that we were able to know that we had this amount of time.

“So the urgency is something that we look to the media to tell the population and the political leaders so there will be a sense or urgency. But at this time there still no urgency because they don’t realize there is actually a clock,” he noted.

He suggested that regardless of what is done at the international level if emissions are not stopped at a certain level, “all we are doing is buying time”.

Dr. Binger said what is required at the international level is a global agreement which caps the emissions and then reduces them, while at the national and regional levels, a rethinking is required because of the impact of sea level rise.

He said that an analysis for the Caribbean suggests that for one meter sea level rise, the damage to infrastructure is estimated at US$100 billion.

“This is a very conservative estimate, most of our beaches will be gone, so how do you build a future economy without tourism,” he said, recommending that the region gets its energy sector right, “not just to reduce our emissions but to generate finance resources that we can build a new economy with and deal with adaptations”.

The AOSIS official also called for better uses to be employed with educating people as to the existing threats, so that they same mistakes and malpractices are not repeated, “thinking that they live in a different climate regime than the one they face in the future.”

Dr. Binger also identified the need for more political understanding that climate change is not an issue for the wider Caribbean but for every single member of the population.