9 May 2024, Apia Samoa - The Pacific Climate Change Roundtable (PCCR) is back to stay, and will be held biennially from 2025 to provide national climate change focal points with a platform to advance their national climate change priorities. The PCCR will ensure enhanced regional collaboration towards Pacific climate change priorities and improved access to the effective financing necessary to deliver them.
The decision was adopted by officials on Thursday evening, at the end of the two-day PCCR held at Taumeasina Island Resort, in Samoa. The meeting reconvened for the first time in seven years.
Pacific leaders have continuously identified climate change as the greatest existential threat facing our Pacific communities. This reality was not lost on officials who gathered at Taumeasina and expressed support to bring back the PCCR as part of efforts to tackle climate change.
They agreed that the PCCR will facilitate the engagement and dialogue to draw on the challenges, lessons learned, and successes gained in the implementation of national climate change policies and strategies, amongst other objectives.
The PCCR will also serve to strengthen regional climate change collaboration, provide a platform for countries, donors and partners to collaborate, to deliver more effective climate finance access for Pacific countries and ensure enhanced regional cooperation in relation to relevant climate change events and initiatives.
The Director General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), Mr Sefanaia Nawadra, acknowledged the work of all the officials.
“We have had a very productive two-days and I want to thank each and every one of you for your contribution to the outcome of our meeting. I want to thank all the countries, our partners, donors and everyone, including our SPREP staff, who has been part of this journey,” Mr Nawadra said.
“We all know that the Pacific Climate Change Roundtable is something we needed to bring back and I am glad that here in this meeting during the past two days, we have been able iron out the details and come up with a way forward. I look forward to the journey ahead and I know this will only grow, given the pressing need to address the challenges brought about by climate change.”
The Director General continued to call for solidarity and unity from everyone to overcome the challenges ahead, especially as Pacific communities continue to face tremendous odds in the battle against climate change.
From 2008-2017, the Pacific Climate Change Roundtable (PCCR) had functioned as the premier climate change mechanism to coordinate and facilitate climate change dialogue and networking in the region and to link global and regional stakeholders with the national and community levels.
But the Roundtable has not been held since 2017, leading to SPREP member countries increasingly calling for it to be brought back.
The 2023 SPREP meeting held in Apia endorsed the reconvening of the PCCR in 2024.
The Pacific Climate Change Roundtable is held from 8 – 10 May in Samoa. It is attended by the Governments of American Samoa, Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, New Zealand, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, United Kingdom, and Vanuatu along with Council of the Regional Organisations of the Pacific partners – Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and the Pacific Community.
This meeting was made possible with the support of the Government of France through the Fonds Pacifique and the Government of New Zealand through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
For further information please visit: https://www.sprep.org/pacific-climate-change-roundtable