The United Nations climate talks (COP28) concluded in Dubai delivered a mixed bag of outcomes for the Pacific.
An early highlight during these annual talks was the agreement to operationalise a loss and damage facility. Its political outcome reflected a general commitment to move away from fossil fuels. This was new and significant but fell well short of being bold given the lack of specifics on how the world will get there.
After years of active diplomacy led largely by the small states of the Pacific, the role of oceans in climate change was given greater recognition. The commitment to give greater weight to the natural world was generally welcomed, and besides the Pacific, perhaps most enthusiastically by Brazil – the hosts of COP30.
What was perhaps the most significant observation following the conclusion of the first global stocktake on climate actions was the ambiguity around the commitment by countries to stay within the 1.5 degree Celsius climate goal agreed to in Paris at COP21.
For the Pacific, and possibly for the rest of the world, this COP was the most important since Paris.
A global stocktake on where individual countries were at in delivering on their climate commitments was unsurprisingly and predictably disappointing.
On the current pathways, the world will miss the 1.5 degree Celsius target – perhaps irreversibly as early as 2030.
On the current pathway, the world will miss the 2.0 degree goal as well.
It will possibly settle at a temperature increase that is closer to a 3.0 Celsius temperature increase.
The small island states of the Pacific can continue to lobby and hope that the world’s leaders in government, in business and in civil society will change track and offer far more ambitious climate actions than they have done at COP28.
The new year is a time for new hope – but in matters as important as state survival, hope cannot be a substitute for strategy. Most of the national calculations and planning across the Pacific are premised on the world agreeing to and securing the 1.5 target.
Realism now demands that Pacific governments begin preparing for post 2.0 Celsius temperature scenarios.
These are almost always going to be more dramatic; more catastrophic and more unsettling scenarios.
The Pacific’s governments would do well to kick start 2023 with a renewed focus on the actions outlined below.
- Revisiting their climate and ocean action plans and priorities. These new scenarios inevitably mean that governments need to revisit their national, sector-specific and community-focused climate and ocean actions plans.
There should be three primary shifts that need to be considered. First is to fast-forward adaption plans – especially those focused on building community resilience, rebuilding food security and critical infrastructure security.
Second, is to lift the ambition levels within these programs to take account of more dramatic and deeper impacts of global warming such as on sea level rise, than previously estimated.
Third, is to reduce the incubation time for preparation of these critical high priority programs and speed up both the quality and pace of implementation. Time is of the essence. 2030 should be the outer year by which most of the large-scale adaption, loss and damage and mitigation programs should have proceeded to substantive implementation phase.
- Recalibrating their climate priorities. As island states of the Blue Pacific recalibrate their climate priorities to take account of the more rapidly changing world than most estimated only 2-3 years earlier, they need to focus on getting the financing right.
The costs of their adaption programs may have just increased two to three-fold if the world stays at the ambition level secured in the Dubai Consensus. The starting point of course as a region must be to lift the region’s share of global climate finance from a low 0.02 per cent currently to at least 1.0 per cent of the total finance available. The Pacific should not be shy about this ask.
The case for this has already been made. The island states of the Blue Pacific are the front of the frontlines of climate change. No other region is as likely to face the physical loss of whole state geographies as this region. This is nearly universally accepted.
Second, island states know only too well that grant and concessionary finance can no longer provide the level of financing that is needed. To fund these recalibrated priorities, Pacific Island states will need to work with their own private sector and increasingly with private finance internationally. This is not easy. The Blue Pacific’s finance and economy ministers have their work cut out like never before.
- Reformulating their climate diplomacy. More of the same cannot be the Pacific’s response to the climate-changed reality that they now confront. What should the Pacific’s diplomacy now involve?
As a region, and as individual states, they will need to use their leverage with individual countries to prioritise a step up in their support for climate action in the region. This step up needs to be real; substantive and focussed on the “now” and not on promises well into the future. Second, they need to step up on their diplomacy in seeking accelerated climate actions in the domestic environments of the countries seeking closer partnership with the Pacific.
Petro-diplomacy needs to be met with a new, small state assertiveness that is fit for purpose.
Second, the time has come for the Pacific to use its collectively power through the Pacific Islands Forum and all other regional settings to secure small state-specific funding instruments across all climate funds.
This should focus on securing provisions for rapid disbursement of funds; having fast track approval processes for small states and ensuring that funds are largely of a grant or ultra concessional and long-term nature. The beginning of any new year is a time to extend best wishes to people, communities and their governments.
The Global stocktake at COP28 was a wake-up call for our region. The best I can offer to Pacific’s communities and their governments in light of this stocktake is wishing the leaders of the Blue Pacific, energy peace, and an extraordinary amount of good luck as they undertake these three sets of actions that are needed between now and 2030 to give the Blue Pacific back a fighting change.
Business as usual for these states ended when the gavel went down at the end of COP28 in Dubai.
Dr Satyendra Prasad is Climate Lead for Abt Associates, Australia and Senior Fellow Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and former Fiji ambassador to the United Nations.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this publication.
