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Sunday, May 12, 2019

Addressing the threat of climate change in Papua New Guinea

By PETER S. KINJAP | PNG ATTITUDE BLOG

PORT MORESBY – The earth experienced very warm periods 50 to 70 million years ago and very cold periods 600,000 years ago and most people are aware that the climate is changing again.

But this time the change is not caused by extreme volcanic periods or projects from space colliding with earth. It is anthropogenic – created by us, the people who live on the planet.

The history of climate science is relatively recent. The first scientist to publish on the subject was the Swede Svante Arrhenius in 1896 who hypothesised that human-caused carbon dioxide emissions would be large enough to cause global warming.

Nearer to the present, a report published in 1979 predicted that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would double from pre-industrial levels by about 2035. Today it is expected this will happen by about 2050. A doubling of carbon dioxide will lead to an average warming of the planet of 2°C to 3°C.

The temperature at the polar regions will increase by approximately 12°C and the tropics by less than 1°C. These forecasts are being seen in the record melting of Arctic Sea ice.

For Papua New Guinea, the 2011 Pacific Climate Change science program reported temperatures would rise between 0.4°C and 1.0°C by 2030.

Kavulik village on Tsoi Island in New Island Province is already showing signs of climate change evident in the rise of sea levels.

In Bougainvlle Province, living no more than 1.5-meters above sea level, Carteret Islanders have been some of the first people to succumb to rising ocean tides and are giving the world its first recorded climate refugees. Spokeswoman Ursula Rakova says the encroaching tides have had a major impact on people's health.

"We're beginning to get more requests for people wanting to move because of the situation worsening due to increase water levels and the dire need for food on the island," she said.

The Carterets people have secured land for new homes on the Bougainville mainland. Land was made available from the Catholic Church, enough to resettle about 100 people from 10 families.

But the access to safety and secure land is only half the battle. “The elderly people do not want to move,” Rakova says. And funds for new housing have also proved to be a major hurdle.

Ms Rakova says the islanders want to maintain their independent way of life and need more support.

"The islanders on the Carterets are victims of what other people have caused and the international community needs to aid and support the work that we are doing," she says.

Sea levels are rising at 7 mm a year in the vicinity of PNG, double the global average of 2.8 - 3.5mm a year.

Regions like Momase are wetter and the roads of Morobe and the Highlands provinces will continue to require increased maintenance. The rainfall in Lae has increased by approximately 500mm per annum, or nearly 11%.

Reducing emissions from deforestation and increasing forest restoration will be extremely important in limiting global warming to 2°C.

Forests represent one of the best and most cost effective climate solutions available. Action to conserve, sustainably manage and restore forests can contribute to economic growth, poverty alleviation, rule of law, food security, climate resilience and biodiversity conservation.

But forests get too little attention as a potential solution to climate change. There are just two paragraphs in the Paris Climate Agreement about forests. A third paragraph is about finance for protecting forests.

And the Paris Agreement makes no mention of how to keep fossil fuels in the ground, which is most likely the only way we can prevent climate chaos.

The carbon trading mechanism known as REDD+ could offset continued emissions from burning fossil fuels by discouraging deforestation.

Benoit Bosquet of the World Bank said the goal is to jump-start a forest carbon market that tips the economic balance in favour of conserving forests.

But carbon trading does not reduce emissions. At best it simply transfers emissions reduced in one part of the world to continued pollution elsewhere.

To prevent climate chaos, two things need to happen: reduced greenhouse emissions and an end to deforestation.

In 2003, the World Bank offered PNG a US$17 million loan if the country closed down its notoriously corrupt logging industry.

A few years later, Kevin Conrad’s MBA thesis at Columbia University concluded that the revenue from carbon credits could equal the revenue from logging in PNG.

Now, a smart project to sustain tropical rainforests by providing incentives to indigenous landowners has emerged through the T4G PNG project in association with PNG Climate Change and Development Authority – which have developed a digital platform for implementing REDD+ programs.

*Peter S Kinjap is a freelance writer and a blogger in Papua New Guinea, email pekinjap@gmail.com