Manila, Philippines, 14 – 16 September 2011

Asia and the Pacific will be amongst the global regions most affected by the impacts of climate change. Countries of the region are particularly vulnerable because of a high degree of exposure to environmental risks and large population. In recent years, Asia and the Pacific has undergone massive and rapid socioeconomic transformation.

Migration within countries, especially from rural to urban areas, has become significant. Countries and populations of Asia and the Pacific will be affected by climate change in different ways, leading to various migration scenarios. Cross-border migration is likely to increase. Already, the region is home to the most important source of international migrants worldwide.

In 2010, more than 30 million people in Asia and the Pacific were displaced by environmental disasters, such as storms and floods. Many returned home, but others did not. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency of extreme weather events, and over time induce significant sea-level rise. At the same time, the region’s population, now around 4 billion, continues to increase. These developments will result in growing numbers of people on the move for reasons that include environmental factors.

ADB Events

In September 2010, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) launched a technical assistance project to develop policy recommendations to address climate-induced migration in Asia and the Pacific. The project is also considering options to finance actions related to climate-induced migration. This unique project aims to stimulate thinking and action by concerned stakeholders and decision-makers on the local, national, regional, and global levels.

On 14 September 2011, ADB will organize a full-day workshop for researchers of environmental displacement and climate-induced migration in Asia and the Pacific. The workshop will bring together individuals exploring these phenomena in several countries in the region. The aim is to share research findings, compare approaches and methodologies, exchange contacts and references, and forge a new professional network. The workshop is expected to bring together researchers from the whole Asia-Pacific region and others interested in their work.

Then, on 15-16 September 2011, ADB will host a one and a half day regional conference to present its initial policy recommendations for addressing migration associated with current environmental events and predicted environmental changes. The conference will assemble leading experts and decision makers from different disciplines. Representatives of governments, inter-governmental organizations, development agencies, NGOs, the private sector, and academe are expected to participate in the event, including researchers who attended the earlier workshop.

These events are likely to be the largest-ever gathering of researchers of environmental displacement and climate-induced migration in the world’s largest and most populous region. The Honorable Mohamed Aslam, Minister of Housing, Transport and Environment, Maldives, will deliver the keynote address at the regional conference. Among the research institutions and international agencies participating in the program will be the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, ICHIMOD, IDDRI, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, International Labour Organization, International Organization for Migration, PIK, Swedish Environmental Institute, UNHCR, and the UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security.

The events will raise awareness of the environment as a driver of migration, opportunities to use migration as a tool of adaptation to climate change, and the need for governments and international agencies to act now to reduce human vulnerability and risk associated with environmental displacement.

If you would like to attend these events, contact Ms. Chet Japson at email mcjapson.consultant@adb.org; telephone +632 632-4444; or fax +632 636 2409.

Almost all districts across the Far West face losses of lives and property every year due to natural disasters. However, the impact can last well beyond the immediate event. Humanitarian actors have observed that the duration of displacement varies depending on the intensity and type of disaster: displacement following inundation of rivers is generally short term, while displacement resulting from floods and erosion is generally longer term.

Read the brief in full here.

Contents include the following:

• A Decision Framework for Environmentally Induced Migration
• Multidimensional Re-creation of Vulnerabilities and Potential for Resilience in International Migration
• The Thin Line Between Choice and Flight: Environment and Migration in Rural Benin
• North-South Migration in Ghana: What Role for the Environment?
• Economic or Environmental Migration? The Push Factors in Niger
• Flooding and Relocation: The Zambezi River Valley in Mozambique
• Western Sahara: Migration, Exile and Environment
• Environmental Degradation and Migration on Hispaniola Island
• Drought Triggered Temporary Migration in an East Indian Village
• Migration and Displacement Triggered by Floods in the Mekong Delta
• Contrasted Views on Environmental Change and Migration: the Case of Tuvaluan Migration to New Zealand

Download each article free here.

Her paper first provides an overview of the predicted ‘hot spots’ and key issues, along with a brief discussion of climate-induced displacement terminology. The second part examines the relevant existing social science literature on environmental degradation, natural disasters and displacement, and on what triggers migration as an adaptation strategy for individuals, households, and communities. The third part highlights the gaps in social science research and provides a focus for the research that will be needed if we are to build up a comprehensive understanding of which populations may be displaced due to the impact of climatic changes.

Read the full paper here »

Environmental Refugees or Economic Migrants?

As the evidence for global environmental change has accumulated over the past decade, academics, policymakers, and the media have given more attention to the issue of “environmental refugees.” A major concern is whether environmental change will displace large numbers of vulnerable people in the developing world, particularly from rural areas where livelihoods are especially dependent on climate and natural resources. A widely cited article estimated that more than 25 million people were displaced by environmental factors in 1995.¹ Skeptics, however, derided these numbers as speculation.² In fact, despite dozens of academic publications and several international conferences on the issue, well-documented cases of environmentally induced migration are largely limited to dramatic events such as Hurricane Katrina in the United States and the creation of the Three Gorges Dam in China.³ The still unclear consequences of smaller-scale but more pervasive forms of environmental change such as droughts and soil degradation limit our ability to predict the scale and nature of future human displacements under accelerating global environmental change. However, new research shows that environmentally induced migration can be temporary and involve relatively short distances, in contrast to fears of large numbers of environmental refugees moving across international borders.

Demographic Studies of Migration in Ecuador and Indonesia

Migrants respond to economic, social, and demographic factors in addition to the environment. Assessing environmental influences on migration is complex and must take these other factors into account. Research on migration and the environment has also been limited by the lack of appropriate data sets and by disciplinary boundaries between migration studies and environmental science. Recently, however, studies by Sabine Henry, Douglas Massey, myself, and others have used approaches from demographic studies of migration, often in combination with Geographic Information Systems, to overcome these challenges. These studies link individual-level data on migration to local characteristics of the environment, then analyze the migration process using multivariate statistical models. This approach represents a significant advance over both small-scale case studies and country-level analyses.

Two studies by myself and colleagues have applied this approach in Ecuador and Indonesia. In Ecuador, I collected survey data from 400 households and constructed a database that addresses the influence of local environmental conditions on migration.⁴ The study region in the southern Ecuadorian Andes is prone to droughts and is an important center of out-migration to internal and international destinations. These data show that communities with adverse environmental conditions (low rainfall and steep slopes) sent more migrants to nearby destinations but fewer migrants to distant and international destinations. This pattern is inconsistent with the environmental refugees narrative that predicts large-scale migration over long distances, but is consistent with previous studies. For example, in Burkina Faso, rainfall variability increased internal migration but decreased international migration; and in Nepal, local environmental degradation increased short-distance moves but not long-distance moves.⁵

In Indonesia, I am participating in the Study of the Tsunami Aftermath and Recovery, which has collected a unique survey dataset in the region affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. In each year since the tsunami, this project has tracked and reinterviewed 10,000 households in Aceh and North Sumatra who were first interviewed in the February 2004 round of the Indonesian National Socioeconomic Survey. Together with colleagues I am using this dataset to examine population displacement following the tsunami.⁶ Our results indicate that, as expected, the tsunami led to high rates of displacement in damaged communities. However, contrary to expectations, most of the displaced remained in or near their origin community, a large proportion stayed with friends or family rather than entering camps, and many returned to their homes within a few months after the tsunami. Vulnerable populations such as the poor were no more likely to be displaced than others.

Most Environmental Migrants Move Short Distances

These are only two studies, but the picture they paint of environmentally induced migration is quite different from the dramatic images conjured by the term “environmental refugees”: Most environmental migrants moved short distances, adverse environmental conditions can actually reduce migration, and vulnerable populations are not necessarily more likely to be displaced. How to explain these results? Migration theory and geography provide some insights. First, a large number of studies have shown that individuals who are educated or better-off are more likely to migrate, due to the costs of migration and greater rewards for the educated. This fact suggests that environmental degradation might reduce migration, particularly to distant destinations, by reducing access to the resources needed to migrate. Second, if the environmental conditions that migrants are responding to vary on a small scale, then a local move might be enough to encounter better conditions or alternative livelihood opportunities.

However, neither of these perspectives is consistent with a view of vulnerable environmental refugees fleeing degradation over long distances or international borders. Instead, the narrative derives from a neo-Malthusian perspective in which vulnerable populations are assumed to have limited capacity to cope with adverse environmental conditions. This school of thought has been largely rejected by social scientists working on related human-environment issues and appears to have little explanatory power in this case.⁷

Our current limited understanding doesn’t allow us to predict with any clarity how migration might respond to future climate change. Large-scale natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami displace large numbers of people and the frequency of such events is likely to rise. The Indonesian case illustrates that even extreme events do not necessarily lead to an international refugee crisis. The consequences of more pervasive forms of environmental change such as droughts and soil degradation are less certain, but current research indicates that they are also unlikely to lead to large-scale movements of long-distance migrants. These studies make clear that environmentally induced migration is real and deserves to be on the international agenda, but simplistic views of massive numbers of “environmental refugees” moving across borders should be set aside.

1. Norman Myers, “Environmental Refugees: A Growing Phenomenon of the 21st Century,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 357, no. 1420 (2002): 609-13.
2. Richard Black, “Environmental Refugees: Myth or Reality?” Working Paper No. 34, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2001).
3. Jeffrey Groen and Anne Polivka, “Hurricane Katrina Evacuees: Who They Are, Where They Are, and How They Are Faring,” Monthly Labor Review 131, no. 3 (2008): 32-51; and Li Heming and Philip Rees, “Population Displacement in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area of the Yangtze River, Central China: Relocation Policies and Migrant Views,” International Journal of Population Geography 6, no. 6 (2000): 439-62.
4. Clark Gray, “Environment, Land and Rural Out-Migration in the Southern Ecuadorian Andes,” World Development 37, no. 2 (2009): 457-68.
5. Sabine Henry, Bruno Schoumaker, and Cris Beauchemin, “The Impact of Rainfall on the First Out-Migration: A Multi-Level Event-History Analysis in Burkina Faso,” Population and Environment 25, no. 5 (2004): 423-60; and Douglas Massey, William Axinn, and Dirgha Ghimire, “Environmental Change and Out-Migration: Evidence From Nepal,” Population Studies Center Research Report No. 07-615, University of Michigan (2007).
6. Clark Gray et al., “Tsunami-Induced Displacement in Sumatra, Indonesia,” paper presented at the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population International Population Conference, Marrakech, Sept. 27-Oct. 2, 2009.
7. Melissa Leach and James Fairhead, “Challenging Neo-Malthusian Deforestation Analyses in West Africa’s Dynamic Forest Landscapes,” Population and Development Review 26, no. 1 (2000): 17-43; Henrik Urdal, “People vs. Malthus: Population Pressure, Environmental Degradation, and Armed Conflict Revisited,” Journal of Peace Research 42, no. 4 (2005): 417-34; and Eric Neumayer, “An Empirical Test of a Neo-Malthusian Theory of Fertility Change,” Population and Environment 27, no. 4 (2006): 327-36.

Source: Population Reference Bureau

Mahe Noor left her village in southern Bangladesh after Cyclone Sidr flattened her family’s home and small market in 2007. Jobless and homeless, she and her husband, Nizam Hawladar, moved to this crowded megalopolis, hoping that they might soon return home.

Two years later, they are still here. Ms. Noor, 25, and Mr. Hawladar, 35, work long hours at low-paying jobs—she at a garment factory and he at a roadside tea stall. They are unable to save money after paying for food and rent on their dark shanty in Korail, one of the largest slums in Dhaka. And in their village, more people are leaving because of river erosion and dwindling job opportunities.

“We’re trapped,” Ms. Noor said.

In the past, many analysts argued that climate-driven migration would lead to tens of millions of “climate refugees” pouring into wealthy countries. Droughts in North Africa, say, would push people into Europe. (This explains why some European anti-immigration groups have adopted green rhetoric.) But more recent research suggests that most of the migration will take place within developing countries—from rural areas to cities. And the main worry here is that these cities are already swelling exponentially, and their infrastructure can barely keep up, which is why many “megacities” sport massive slums.

Now, the tricky part is tying these trends to climate change. After all, severe storms and droughts are nothing new. Nor is internal migration. People in developing countries have been flocking to cities for a long time, whether it’s to seek out work or because the rainfall’s dried up or because the soil’s eroded away. We can say that global warming will exacerbate these pressures and greatly increase the pace of migration, but it’s hard to attribute any single event—or single migrant—to man-made climate change. (Virtually no scientist will say that Cyclone Sidr was caused by global warming, though many will agree that this type of event will become more frequent as the oceans heat up.)

This seems like hairsplitting, but it could become a major issue. One of the few concrete items that came out of Copenhagen was a pledge by rich countries to set up a $100 billion annual climate fund by 2020 (with smaller amounts of climate aid dribbling in earlier). Some of this money is supposed to help poor countries adapt to a warmer world. But how do you distinguish between people displaced specifically by climate change and those migrating for other reasons? The difficulty in sorting out causes is one reason why forecasts of “climate refugees” vary so wildly, from 200 million by 2050 to one billion by 2050.

So climate-driven migration is a real concern, but it’s worth being precise about the concept. Geoff Dabelko, who directs the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center, had a smart post back in 2007 urging environmentalists to be careful when using the term “climate refugee” (the word “refugee” is particularly problematic, since it has a precise legal definition and invokes certain responsibilities by governments). Otherwise, the problem just gets harder to solve.

Source: The New Republic

In addition to assessing the impacts of climate change on migration across the entire region, a number of case studies are carried out in particular hot spots, such as Bangladesh–India, the PRC, and the Pacific. Smaller case studies use secondary data in Central Asia, Indonesia, the Mekong, Nepal, and Thailand.

In Chapter 2, the study looks at the evidence linking climate change and migration followed in Chapter 3 with a brief look at the nature of migration in the region. Chapter 4 then presents the potential hot spots of climate change in Asia and the Pacific, leading into the Chapter 5 discussion of the possible impact on migration (projecting the numbers of people who will be vulnerable). The implications for policy are than analyzed in Chapter 6, closing the study with a series of recommendations dealing directly with migration and the possible effects of climate change.

Click here to access the full report »

.
Source: PreventionWeb

Photo credit: Kevin German/Luceo Images

(New York Times) September 23, 2009 – CAI RANG, Vietnam – For centuries, as monsoon rains, typhoons and wars have swept over them and disappeared into the sunshine, the farmers and fishermen of the Mekong Delta have drawn life from the water and fertile fields where the great river ends its 2,700-mile journey to the sea.

The rhythms of life continue from season to season though, like much of the country, the delta is moving quickly into the future, and industry has begun to pollute the air and water.

But everything here, both the timeless and the new, is at risk now from a threat that could bring deeper and longer-lasting disruptions than the generations of warfare that ended more than 30 years ago.

In a worse-case projection, a Vietnamese government report released last month says that more than one-third of the delta, where 17 million people live and nearly half the country’s rice is grown, could be submerged if sea levels rise by three feet in the decades to come.

In a more modest projection, it calculates that one-fifth of the delta would be flooded, said Tran Thuc, who leads Vietnam’s National Institute for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Sciences and is the chief author of the report.

Storm surges could periodically raise that level, he said, and experts say an intrusion of salt water and industrial pollution could contaminate much of the remaining delta area.

The risks of climate change for Vietnam go far beyond the Mekong Delta, up into the Central Highlands, where rising temperatures could put the coffee crop at risk, and to the Red River Delta in the north, where large areas could be inundated near the capital, Hanoi.

Climate experts consider this nation of an estimated 87 million people to be among the half-dozen most threatened by the weather disruptions and rising sea levels linked to climate change that are predicted in the course of this century.

If the sea level rises by three feet, 11 percent of Vietnam’s population could be displaced, according to a 2007 World Bank working paper.

If it rises by 15 feet, 35 percent of the population and 16 percent of the country’s land area could be affected, the document said.

The government report emphasizes that the predictions represent the threat, based on current models, if no measures are taken in the coming decades, like building dikes.

But the potential disruptions and the tremendous cost of trying to reduce their impact could slow Vietnam’s drive to emerge from its postwar poverty and impede its ambitions to become one of the region’s economic leaders.

Once again, this nation, which has spent much of its history struggling to free itself from foreign domination, finds itself threatened by an overpowering outside force.

“Climate change isn’t caused by a developing country like Vietnam, but it is suffering the consequences,” said Koos Neefjes, a policy adviser on climate change with the United Nations Development Program in Hanoi.

In addition to rising seas in the Mekong Delta, climatologists predict more frequent, severe and southerly typhoons, heavier floods and stronger storm surges that could ultimately drive hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

Climate refugees could swell the population of Ho Chi Minh City, on low-lying land just north of the delta, as war refugees did when it was known as Saigon.

But the city itself is also at risk, says the government study, prepared by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. Up to one-fourth of the city’s area would be threatened by rising floodwaters if the sea level rose by three feet.

“Ho Chi Minh City could have a double impact if sea levels rise and living conditions in the delta are not sustainable,” Mr. Thuc, the lead author of the government report, said in an interview.

His report assesses only the climatological risks, he said, and a great deal more work needs to be done to try to determine their social and economic impacts and the probable effect on population displacement.

Because of the uncertainties of climate change and the variables of mitigation measures, it is impossible to rank nations precisely on a scale of risk, Mr. Neefjes said.

However, the 2007 World Bank working paper studied 84 coastal developing countries and found Vietnam to be the most threatened in terms of percentage of population affected, and second only to the Bahamas in terms of percentage of land area affected, if no mitigating measures are taken.

“Among all of the indicators used in this paper, Vietnam ranks among the top five most impacted countries,” the paper says. It did not include some small island nations like the Maldives and Tuvalu that are also threatened with severe inundation.

A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change listed the Mekong Delta, Bangladesh and the Nile Delta in Egypt as the world’s three “hot spots” for potential migration because of their combination of sea-level rise and existing population.

As a region, Southeast Asia is disproportionately vulnerable, with only 3.3 percent of the world’s land mass but more than 11 percent of its coastline, the Asian Development Bank said in a report it released this year.

But Vietnam has at least recognized the problem and begun to address it, Mr. Neefjes said. “Faster than any developing country, it has actually developed a sensible national program to start responding,” he said.

Those plans include an attempt to integrate environmental concerns into the development plans of ministries and enterprises, modifications that could conflict with their ambitions for growth, he said.

Experts said Vietnam’s primary approach — the hugely expensive construction and reinforcement of thousands of miles of dikes — would bring its own set of problems.

In the delta, they said, the barriers will probably inhibit the self-cleansing mechanism of rivers and trap millions of cubic yards of industrial waste, hundreds of thousands of tons of industrial rubbish, and millions of tons of pesticides and fertilizer that are used in fish farms and shrimp farms.

“If one-third of the delta’s area is flooded by seawater, losses would be huge,” Vo Hung Dung, director of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Can Tho city branch, said last month in the newspaper Tuoi Tre. “But if the entire delta is polluted by wastewater, the losses could be many times higher.”

Here on the tiny Hau River, which winds through shaded groves of palm, bamboo and mangrove just south of Can Tho in the heart of the delta, there seems to be little awareness of these concerns.

Nguyen Thanh Chanh, 29, who fishes with his wife in a small boat, said that he sometimes listened to the radio and sometimes drank with friends at the end of the day, but that he had never heard any talk of climate change.

Life is already hard, and the rivers already flood during the monsoon season from June to November, from the swollen currents of the Mekong, from heavy rains and from tidal flooding.

An estimated 85 percent of the people in the delta are supported by agriculture.

“Those who farm go to the fields, and those who fish go to the rivers,” said Huynh Thuy, 47, a farmer. “They don’t worry much about the future.”

Source: New York Times

Residents gather to remove a fallen tree blocking a road in Changle, China, in Fujian province on Saturday. Photo credit: CNN

(CNN) August 10, 2009 – A deadly typhoon that slammed into China’s coastal provinces and Taiwan over the weekend has displaced nearly one million people and left dozens missing, state-run media reported Monday.

High winds and torrential rain of Typhoon Morakot hit coastal provinces Fujian and Zhejian hardest, and caused the worst flooding in decades in Taiwan — where flood waters as high as 7 feet were reported, China Daily reported.

The deadly typhoon swept across the Philippines and Taiwan’s Hualien region before crashing into eastern China, claiming nearly two dozens lives along the way, the newspaper reported.

The storm — measuring about 1,600 kilometers (about 1,000 miles) across — continued to pummel coastal China Monday, but forecasters said it is unlikely that Morakot would reach Shanghai, the country’s largest city, which sits further north along the coast.

Government officials expect the typhoon to cause more than 8.5 million yuan ($1.2 billion) in damages, the newspaper said.

Video from Taiwan showed a six-story hotel crashing into the floodwaters coursing below. The well-known hot springs resort had evacuated before the collapse.

At least seven people were killed, 32 wounded and 46 unaccounted for, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.

In China, five houses were destroyed as the front of the typhoon brought flooding rains to Wenzhou City in neighboring Zhejiang province just after 8 a.m. Sunday, Xinhua said. Three adults and a 4-year-old boy were buried in debris about 8 a.m. Rescue workers were unable to save the child, and he died, the city’s flood-control headquarters told the news agency.

A “red alert” — the highest degree in danger levels — was issued in Zhejiang, where more than 35,000 vessels were called back from sea, China Daily reported, citing provincial flood control officials.

More than 300 homes collapsed, and more than 16,000 hectares (39,500 acres) were flooded, Xinhua said. The city’s airport was closed and 56 roads were rendered impassable.

As the eye of the storm reached Beibi, the sky turned completely dark, and people caught in rainstorms staggered as they used flashlights to see, Xinhua reported. Trees were being uprooted and torn apart by damaging winds.

Farmers were attempting to recapture large amounts of fish, flushed from mudflat fish farms by high winds, Xinhua said.

Nearly a million people were evacuated from Fujian and Zhejiang provinces as Morakot approached. Late Friday, the storm lashed Taiwan, killing two people, wounding 15 and knocking off power to about 650,000 households, according to Hong Kong’s Metro Radio.

Meanwhile, another typhoon hit west Japan on Monday, with 12 people confirmed dead.

Source: CNN

Photo credit: Cameron Feast/Oxfam

(Oxfam Australia) July 27, 2009 – An Oxfam Australia report published today highlights the urgent need for next week’s Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns to address the dramatic effects of climate change within the region.

The Future is Here: Climate Change in the Pacific finds that Pacific Islanders are already feeling the effects of climate change and need greater support now. People are facing increasing food and water shortages, losing land and being forced from their homes, dealing with rising cases of malaria, and coping with more frequent flooding and storm surges.

The report argues that unless wealthy, developed countries like Australia take urgent action to curb emissions, some island nations face the very real threat of becoming uninhabitable.

Pacific leaders will raise the issue of climate change with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the Pacific Islands Forum from 4 – 7 August.

Oxfam Australia Executive Director Andrew Hewett said with only months to go until the crucial UN negotiations in Copenhagen in December, it was clear Australia needed to show Pacific leaders it was willing to do its fair share to address one of the most pressing challenges in the region.

“People are already leaving their homes because of climate change, with projections that 75 million people in the Asia-Pacific region will be forced to relocate by 2050 if climate change continues unabated. Not all will have the option of relocating within their own country, so it’s vital that the Australian Government starts working with Pacific governments to plan for this now,” Mr Hewett said.

The report details how Pacific Islanders are already adapting to their changing climate. Fijians, for example, are taking steps to ‘climate-proof’ their villages by trialling salt-resistant varieties of staple foods, planting mangroves and native grasses to halt coastal erosion, protecting fresh water wells from saltwater intrusion and relocating homes and community buildings away from vulnerable coastlines.

Elsewhere, the Malaita provincial government in the Solomon Islands is looking for land to resettle people from low-lying outer atolls, while people living in the outer atolls of the Federated States of Micronesia are facing food and water shortages and moving to higher ground.

The report argues that the fairest and most cost-effective way of dealing with climate change is to ensure the most extreme impacts are avoided altogether, as Australia would be called on to respond to more emergencies in the region. As the wealthiest country in the region and the highest per capita polluter, Australia must prevent further climate damage to the Pacific by urgently adopting higher targets – reducing emissions by at least 40 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020 – and urging other developed countries to do the same.

The Government’s commitment of $150 million to help Pacific Islanders adapt to climate change needs to be at least doubled to meet the most urgent adaptation needs in the Pacific. This must be in addition to Australia’s existing aid commitments so that crucial poverty alleviation efforts are not compromised.

Source: Oxfam Australia

Related Links:
“The Future is Here: Climate Change in the Pacific” – Oxfam Australia