20 May 2025, Apia, Samoa - As climate change continues to devastate communities across the Pacific, media practitioners and journalists are gathering this week at the Pacific Climate Change Centre (PCCC) in Apia, Samoa, to sharpen one of the region's most powerful tools in the fight for climate change action, storytelling.
From 19-21 May 2025, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) is hosting the first regional media training on Loss and Damage Reporting, a timely initiative aimed at building capacity of Pacific islands to factually and consistently report on one of the most urgent climate issues facing the region.
Loss and Damage, a relatively new term but one gaining increasing global traction, refers to the often irreversible harms caused by climate change that are occurring due to insufficient mitigation and cannot be prevented through adaptation measures.
For the Pacific region there are a variety of climate impacts that cause loss and damage including rising sea levels, saltwater intrusion and tropical cyclones. These climate impacts lead to losses and damages including destruction of infrastructure, crop damage, fish loss and damage to cultural heritage.
“Pacific journalists are uniquely positioned to document and communicate the lived realities of climate change with cultural sensitivity and urgency,” said Second Secretary for the New Zealand High Commission in Samoa, Mr Jonathan Lee.
“The media serves as a bridge between scientific evidence, lived experience and policy action. Making it an indispensable tool in the global response to climate change induced Loss and Damage.”
Scientific evidence continues to show that climate-related Loss and Damage is unequally distributed, with vulnerable developing countries in the Pacific bearing the brunt, despite contributing the least to global emissions. Furthermore, multiple climate hazards will occur simultaneously and interact, resulting in compounding risks across sectors and regions.
Since 2008 SPREP has worked to build capacity for Pacific Islands media to report on the issues of climate change. The training builds on that work and aligns with the increasing need of accurate, human-centred and impacts based climate journalism in the Pacific.
“Pacific leaders have identified climate change as the ‘greatest existential threat’ facing the Blue Pacific continent, and Pacific media have long played an important role in bringing attention to this important issue,” said SPREP Director General, Mr Sefanaia Nawadra.
“It is a priority for the Secretariat to connect and build on our working relationship and partnership with the media to amplify our One Pacific Voice. We recognise the important role you play in keeping our people informed, and this training is an opportunity to empower our Pacific media to do so.”
The three-day training features a combination of interactive activities and Talanoa sessions. Participants will engage with environment and climate change experts to debunk climate change myths and explore the latest climate science and better understand international climate change negotiations and funding mechanisms related to Loss and Damage.
A key feature of the training includes a site visit to areas heavily impacted by climate change, where participants will see firsthand what Loss and Damage looks like on the ground and hear directly from communities who are living through the consequences.
At the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP27 in Egypt, new funding arrangements for assisting developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, in responding to loss and damage, was established. A year later in Dubai at COP28, the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) was operationalised, marking a breakthrough for Pacific communities.
As Loss and Damage moves from policy to an implementation phase, participants of the training will have stronger technical knowledge of the issues for Pacific storytelling that could shift narratives and inspire action for a Resilient Pacific.
The Regional Training for Media on Loss and Damage, 19-21 May 2025, is made possible with funding support from the Loss and Damage Capability and Capacity (LDCC) Project with the Government of New Zealand.
For more information, please contact SPREP Climate Change Adaptation Adviser, Ms Filomena Nelson filomenan@sprep.org or Media and Public Relations Officer, Mr Keni Lesa sosikenil@sprep.org