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Pacific SIDS Climate Change Event

2015 is critical year for the international community as intergovernmental negotiations move towards finalizing the SDGs to replace the MDGs, to be endorsed by Leaders in the 2015 September Summit, as we prepare for the Finance for Development Addis Ababa Conference in July and as we head for COP 21 in Paris.

2015 has also seen major climate calamities in our part of the world ranging from unusually high king tides, affecting, Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu in February and March, Cyclone Pam affecting Vanuatu, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu and Super Typhoon Maysak affecting the Federated States of Micronesia resulting in loss of lives, unprecedented damage and suffering to the people, to communities and whole nations. These countries are still undergoing extensive rehabilitation and reconstruction work, yet the world has already forgotten.

These calamities serve as a stark reminder and a reality check that there can be no sustainable development for all, if urgent multilateral action is not fast tracked to address the existential challenges posed by the changes in our climate system and in particular, to rising sea levels and its effects on people, communities and nations.   

This side event is a joint event by Pacific Small Island Developing States PSIDS (Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu) to bring global attention to the plight of our people, our women and children as the United Nations General Assembly focus on Climate Change in June 2015, on Sustainable Development Goals in September and on a Climate Agreement in December..

The event will address the question “What is it like to be in the frontline and to fight against cyclones, typhoons and sea level rise….” a fate shared by millions of people globally since the vast majority of human settlements, villages, towns and cities are situated in low lying coastal areas. Being on the frontline now comes with the responsibility, not only to build resilience for our own people and countries, but also to take a proactive role in reaching out to share our stories with the global community and show the human and people face of climate change….that it is affecting PEOPLE. 

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