By Adelaide Sirox Kari – EMTV News, Port Moresby
The European Union is looking to encourage more dialogue and collaboration to combat Climate Change this Climate Diplomacy Week.
The Climate Diplomacy week will be held from the 24 to the 29th of this month and is a global event for EU delegations and members states.
Discussions were held today (24 September 2018) amongst media houses on the challenges of Climate Change faced by PNG and on a global scale.
In the recent Pacific Island Forum, Pacific countries agreed that the greatest threat to Pacific Island Nations was Climate Change.
During the Climate Diplomacy Week, the European Union delegation to PNG hopes to create discussion on combating climate change in PNG. This, to contribute to the global action. Outreach activities will include discussions with academia, civil society, government, the public as a whole, and the media.
During the Media information session today, the head of EU Chargé d’Affaires Rudi Filon, highlighted what the European Union is doing to progress towards the long-term goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement and how EU countries, nationally determined contributions will be communicated by 2020.
Climate Change affects all sectors and Mr. Filon says the impacts have been seen in EU countries and will be seen in PNG if there is no action or education.
The European Union has a number of climate change partner programs they run in the country. One of them is the PNG Forest Monitoring system, which provides accurate and spatially explicit images showing forest extent and the locations where activities causing deforestation is happening. As Illegal Logging and logging affects the usual amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere and a key aspect of combating Climate Change.
Meanwhile, EU countries also impose a ban on the import of forest products that are made from Illegal logs, as a measure for their battle against climate change.
The EU has also organized a public beach cleaning on Saturday morning to raise awareness, with the Diplomatic and local staff of the EU Delegation to lead the effort.
