Pacific Leaders, who view climate change impacts as a serious "existential threat", have declared their region under a State of Climate Emergency, the Director General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) Mr Sefanaia Nawadra told a high-level segment on Climate Change at COP28, in Dubai, UAE on 9 December.

The Pacific-expected outcomes from COP28, are calling for world leaders to keep the 1.5 degrees limit within reach, and to cut green house gas emissions.

SPREP

SPREP is the Pacific’s inter-governmental organisation established by Pacific Island governments 30 years ago, and charged with protecting and managing the environment and natural resources of the Pacific, increasingly from the impacts of climate change.

Director General Nawadra said the Pacific small island developing states had again, come to COP28 with a loud and clear clarion call for the world to hear.

“We need to keep within 1.5 to stay alive!”, he said.

1.5°C target

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that the world can still limit warming below 1.5°C, provided global greenhouse gas emissions peak before 2025, and are halved by 2030.

“This is the hope we are holding on to, and calling for all to make a reality,” said Mr. Nawadra.

SPREP calls for COP28 to put in place a global stocktake that facilitates the course correction necessary for keeping below the 1.5C limit, and must include a phasing out of fossil fuels and an end to fossil fuel subsidies, in line with the best available science and the principles, and provisions of the Paris Agreement.

There’s also a need to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030.

Meanwhile, developed countries must deliver on their commitment to the $100B Climate Financing goal, as financing remains inadequate, said Mr. Nawadra.

Pacific Ocean

He said the Pacific Ocean is the largest and only sustainably managed tuna fisheries in the world, vital to global food security and the lifeblood of our island nation economies, but it is at risk from climate change.

"We continue to call for all relevant constituted bodies to have oceans on their agendas and work plans in some form and wish to see a formal placement of the oceans dialogue on the agenda."