The Pacific Ocean and Climate Crisis Assessment (POCCA) project launched Volume 2 of its POCCA report on 25 March 2025 in front of dignitaries, authors, invited guests and members of the diplomatic corps at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) Executive Conference Room.
Launching the report was the New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Fiji, Her Excellency Ms Charlotte Darlow. In her address, she noted that what merely started as a conversation amongst colleagues has finally turned into reality.
“As I recall, eight or nine years ago, we used to spend a lot of time sitting in the Ministry’s building in Wellington talking about Antarctica.”
“The reason that we talked about the Antarctica was because we were talking about the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and how the Antarctic part of the of the IPCC research, 80% of that chapter are written by scientists who live and are often close to the piece of Earth and ocean that, that part describes,” she added.
“When we look at the Pacific, we see a vast plethora, at the time, of largely European scientists, not that there’s anything wrong with that, who would come into the region, do their research; take their results back to Helsinki or Oslo or somewhere else and write their chapter and the research never got here.”
With the vision to redirect the status quo and ensure that the Pacific drives its own research, Ms Darlow acknowledged the work put in by the partnering institutions, the University of Canterbury and The University of the South Pacific (USP) for bringing the Pacific narrative to the forefront of global climate negotiations through the POCCA report.
“We just kept looking at it and also thinking, why is it that the Pacific Ocean, our last healthy, functioning ocean on the planet, one that is showing times of stress and turbulence? Why is it that our own academics and scientists aren’t studying it?”
“So I really also want to acknowledge USP in this process, alongside the University of Canterbury. This project really does represent the future, what we hope is the current state of academic connection across the region and that we are building a foundation here, to not only do the science but to connect the science to the context that makes the science important and usable and relatable,” she added.
Acting Director of USP’s Centre for Sustainable Futures (CSF) Associate Professor Dr Awnesh Singh, in concluding the event, acknowledged the support by MFAT in funding the project, ensuring that messages captured in the report are heard.
“A very special thank you goes to the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) for their generous funding and support of the POCCA project,” he said.
“Your continued partnership enables vital, Pacific-led work like this to come to life and reach the audiences that matter most.”
“To our contributors, authors, scientists and researchers, technical experts, and community leaders and representatives and policy speaclists, collaborating institutions and regional partners – thank you for your unwavering commitment to the POCCA process and to amplifying Pacific voices in global climate discourse.”
USP’s POCCA Project Team Leader, Dr Hilda Waqa-Sakiti also acknowledged the work of the technical POCCA team at USP for their tremendous efforts in putting volume 2 together, from field work, data analysis, report writing and final editorial works and design together with our UC partners.
With the POCCA report launched, the focus now shifts to completing the remaining 3 outputs for the project: Research papers and publications (Output 2), Digital Database (Output 3) and Interactive Case Studies (Output 4).
Funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFAT), New Zealand, the three-year POCCA project is a collaborative effort between the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD) through The University of the South Pacific’s, Centre for Sustainable Futures (CSF) and the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury.
