10 Papua New Guinea’s Response to Climate Change: Challenges and Ways Forward

Abstract

The developing nations of the Pacific are already affected by climate change, as evidenced by the impact of rising sea levels and the increasing intensity of cyclonic events in the region in the past few years (Walsh et al, 2012). These phenomena are intensifying within the region and are likely to continue intensifying for many decades to come unless serious action is taken by the international community to combat climate change. Therefore, every country in the Pacific should build resilience to the adverse effects of climate change and contribute to the international effort to combat climate change. This chapter details the responses of the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG), and its endeavours to match domestic implementation to international initiatives. Climate change has posed specific and significant challenges for Pacific governments, and has had important impacts on a range of national contexts. In particular this chapter describes the gaps between the way Papua New Guinea has responded to international rationales that provide and incentivise funding for climate change in certain ways, and the weaker rationales and successes in implementing processes internally as a nation. By presenting the details and realities of one Pacific government’s endeavour to respond to climate change through the policy process, the chapter portrays the limitations of taking climate change as a small set of simple issues, and instead exposes the required groundwork and the real interface of matching international and grassroots perspectives. PNG, the biggest country in terms of land area and population in the Pacific, is a recognized leader on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD and REDD+103) on the international stage. The broad form of the REDD concept (Costa Rica and PNG, 2005) was masterminded by PNG and Costa Rica and presented at the 11th annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 11) in Montreal in 2005. The former