Climate Change and Disaster Displacement

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) is the Pacific region’s premier political and economic policy organization. The key development framework for the Forum is the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent. This crucial document outlines the commitment to ensuring health and wellbeing of Pacific peoples, and to human rights and equity for all. The 2050 Strategy places emphasis on the ocean and land and celebrates Pacific communities, the natural environment, resources, livelihoods, faiths, cultural values and traditional knowledge. 

The Leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum on 9 November issued the 2023 Declaration on the Continuity of Statehood and the Protection of Persons in the Face of Climate Change-related Sea-Level Rise.(external link)

Climate change remains the greatest existential threat to the livelihoods, security, and well-being of the Blue Pacific Continent. The impacts of climate change include sea-level rise which is already affecting Pacific countries.

As individuals and organizations in localities across the globe mobilize to support those displaced by war, conflict, and climate disasters, meeting immediate needs of migrants and refugees is critical. At the same time, building the infrastructure needed to support and engage migrants and broader communities in the long term is essential to ensure strong life outcomes beyond the initial welcoming period.

The Santiago Network was established at COP25 in Madrid as part of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change with the objective of “catalysing technical assistance of relevant organisations, bodies, networks and experts, for the implementation of relevant approaches for averting, minimise and addressing loss and damage at the local, national and regiona

The UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) are collaborating to develop a new tracking system to record and analyse hazardous events and disaster losses and damages.

The new system will be fully aligned with the Sendai Framework and related SDG targets and indicators, and interoperable with the WMO Catalogue of Hazardous events which will provide authoritative records of weather, climate, and water-related hazardous events at the national and regional levels. 

Taking into account of the lessons learned and experiences gained from the implementation of National Strategy for Disaster Risk Management 2009, the learnings and experiences of the Gorkha earthquake 2015 and recent other disasters for reducing the existing disaster risks and preventing of new potential risks, this National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy 2018 has been prepared to build safer, adaptive and resilience nation from disaster risks.

This policy paper presents key considerations and calls for action to ensure countries in contexts of fragility, conflict and violence are supported by all relevant EWS stakeholders and especially donors, humanitarian and development agencies and civil society actors.

The UN Secretary-General launched in March 2022, the Early Warnings for All initiative which called for every person on Earth to be protected by early warning systems within five years by 2027. 

In November 2022, the UN Secretary-General launched at COP27 an Executive Action Plan to implement the initiative and designated as the co-leads the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).