Climate and Environmental Changes in the Pacific

Preface

From 13 to 19 July 1997, the University of the South Pacific hosted the VIII Pacific Science Inter-Congress of the Pacific Science Association at its Laucala Campus in Suva, Fiji. The session on 'Climate Change' (as it was originally called), convened by Professor Patrick Nunn and me of the Geography Department at USP, attracted 15 oral presentations, which dealt with a wide range of topics on past human activities, current scientific investigations and future predictions of climate and environmental change in Oceania. The session was also the forum for a workshop of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) related climate variability in the tropical Pacific, and a meeting of the START Network, an organisation dedicated to developing and co-ordinating the capacity to respond to the regional implications of global environmental change.

This book is a selection of papers drawn from the contributions to the conference session and the ENSO workshop. A rationale for its publication is not difficult to find. While the continental industrialised nations of the Pacific Rim continue to debate where the costs and responsibilities of reducing greenhouse gas emissions should lie, it is the geographically and economically marginal oceanic island nations of the Pacific Basin that are most at risk if future climate change scenarios become reality, and least prepared and able to cope with the associated problems.

The eight papers that comprise this volume explore some of the climatic and environmental themes of current concern in the Pacific islands. These themes include historical human impacts, sea-level and climate monitoring, and hazards linked to the ENSO phenomenon. Although this work does not hold all the solutions to the problems of climate and environmental change in the Pacific, it is hoped nevertheless that it gives an indication to the people of the Pacific islands that some of their anxieties are being addressed.

James P Terry

November 1998

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