Greta Thunberg has already pronounced the COP26 climate conference a failure. In important respects, the Swedish activist is correct. The commitments made at the conference are insufficient to hold global heating to 1.5℃ this century.
The world is on track for disastrous levels of global heating far in excess of the limits in the Paris climate agreement, despite a flurry of carbon-cutting pledges from governments at the UN Cop26 summit.
Pacific Island biodiversity has a notorious record of decline and extinction which continues due to habitat loss and degradation, invasive species, overexploitation, pollution, disease and human-forced climate change. In terrestrial systems, these global and local pressures are more acute because of relatively small land to sea area, high endemism and poor adaptations to resist predation.
The rest of the world must play its part in slowing climate change and helping island states to adapt to its impacts says Inger Andersen Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
The Pew Charitable Trusts today applauded several nations for including ambitious targets to protect and restore coastal wetlands in their updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Parties to the Paris Agreement are increasingly recognizing the role that coastal "blue carbon" habitats c
Simon Kofe, Tuvalu’s foreign minister, has filmed a speech to climate summit COP26 knee-deep in the ocean. Kofe aims to highlight the effect of rising sea levels on the small island state in the South Pacific.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has pledged $2 billion in funding to help restore nature and transform food systems.
Fiji will be highlighting the nexus between oceans and climate change at COP26, and its impact on vulnerable coastal communities. Minister for Climate Change, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says they will also be re-looking at the Paris Rulebook, identifying specific areas that need urgent attention.
The Pacific Islands are at the frontline of climate change. But as rising seas threaten their very existence, these tiny nation states will not be submerged without a fight. For decades this group has been the world’s moral conscience on climate change.
Despite islands contributing only 6.7% of land surface area, they harbor ~20% of the Earth’s biodiversity, but unfortunately also ~50% of the threatened species and 75% of the known extinctions since the European expansion around the globe. Due to their geological and geographic history and characteristics, islands act simultaneously as cradles of evolutionary diversity and museums of formerly widespread lineages—elements that permit islands to achieve an outstanding endemicity.