The University of the South Pacific was recently part of the writeshop that was held in Apia, Samoa from November 4-7th to promote Pacific authors on climate change publication in the lead up to the next cycle of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
The workshop was organized by the Pacific Climate Change Centre (PCCC) and attended by IPCC focal points from Pacific Island Countries, partners from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), SPC, University of Melbourne, The National University of Samoa (NUS), Solomon Islands National University (SINU), University of the South Pacific (USP) and PCCC-SPREP officials.
Research Fellow Dr. Zina Bird and PhD Candidate Salote Nasalo from USP’s Centre for Sustainable Futures (CSF) attended the writeshop with funding support from the Pacific Ocean and Climate Crisis Assessment (POCCA) project to present some of its project’s key outcomes.
These outcomes are from the POCCA reports Volumes 1 and 2 where several chapters focused on Food Security, Water Security, Loss and Damage and Climate Change and Traditional knowledge. These will be further developed into journal publications working closely with POCCA report lead authors.
Dr. Bird indicated that attending the workshop offered her great insight into the processes involving the production of the IPCC report especially in capturing the impacts of climate change faced by Pacific islanders.
It also gave her the opportunity as an early career researcher to engage with representatives and partners from regional, international and academic institutions where Pacific people gathered under the same obligation to fight climate change where our voices can be heard through collaborative work and research.
Funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFAT), New Zealand, the three-year POCCA project is a collaborative effort between 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.
