A key focus of the three-day meeting in Majuro will be the Pacific’s strategy at the global climate change meeting to be held in Copenhagen at which world leaders will attempt to hammer out agreement on cutting back “greenhouse gas” emissions that are causing the Earth’s climate to change.
“We will be looking on the one hand at getting new information on impacts in the region and using that to generate further input to our negotiating strategy,” Espen Ronneberg, the climate change advisor to the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program, who is involved in organizing the Majuro talks, said Thursday.
“We are in need of strong binding commitments to reduce emissions and to support adaptation to impacts (of climate change),” said Ronneberg, who is based in Samoa.
“We are going to be among the first casualties of climate change,” said Marshall Islands Environmental Protection Authority acting board chairman Ben Chutaro on Thursday, speaking about his coral atoll nation that has an average height of less than one meter above sea level.
Ronneberg said he expects there will be “some new science discussed” at the Roundtable, which will involve representatives from more than a dozen island countries, with a look at the expected sea level rise and other impacts for Pacific islands from different levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
Dr. Mark Lander, a meteorologist with the University of Guam’s Water and Environmental Research Institute that is affiliated with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told officials in Majuro that sea level rise in Micronesia this decade has been three times the world average.
“Globally, the average is about three millimeters per year increase in sea level,” said Lander. “In Micronesia, we’re seeing 10 millimeters per year. This is extreme sea level rise and far exceeds the global average.”
When the Kyoto Protocol was signed to combat climate change in 1997, there was no trend evident on sea level rise in Micronesia, Lander said.
“Ten years later, the highest sea level rise in the world is in Micronesia,” he said. This correlates to the El Niño-La Niña weather phenomena swings.
“The 1990s were the decade of El Niño and sea level was down,” he said.
There have been more years of the La Niña weather system since 2000, which is increasing sea levels. Whether this can be pinned on climate change isn’t really an issue for Lander. “If the sea level is high, what does it matter whether it is from global warming or La Niña?”
Ronneberg expressed concern that “there has been an increase in severe weather events such as king tides and cyclones” in the region, issues that are at the forefront of island concerns about the need to secure funding and other support to deal with impacts of climate change.
“Australia has ramped up its adaptation commitment,” he said, “but the process has been a bit lengthy.”
The Majuro Roundtable is “seeking to reframe the whole delivery of climate change support” in the Pacific, Ronneberg said.
