- What timeline options were delegates debating?
- How did the timeline discussions unfold?
- What were the main points of disagreement?
- Why is the IPCC in a ‘serious funding crisis’?
- How have scientists reacted?
- What other issues remain unresolved?
- How are the IPCC AR7 reports progressing?
- How might the IPCC use AI and enhance gender inclusivity?
The 8th Adaptation Futures conference will be held in Ōtautahi Christchurch, New Zealand from October 13-16, 2025. The climate challenges of Pacific island nations will form a key part of the event.
Vanuatu, a collection of 83 islands separated by around 1,300 km deep in the South Pacific Ocean, is among a group of ocean states widely regarded as uniquely exposed to climate change.
The World Risk Index, created by German academics and NGOs, has consistently ranked Vanuatu as the world’s most vulnerable country to climate risks and natural disasters.
Geography plays a large role in this because of Vanuatu’s proximity to the Pacific “Ring of Fire” – an area of strong volcanic activity and earthquakes – and its position close to the centre of a cyclone belt. Cyclonic storms have become more frequent and powerful in recent years due to global warming.
Category 5 tropical cyclones – the most severe – are particularly occurring more often. In 2015, Cyclone Pam damaged an estimated 90% of all buildings in Vanuatu and impacted half the population. This was followed by Cyclone Harold in 2020 when winds of up to 125 miles per hour caused an estimated US$768 million in damages across the Pacific.
Another reason for Vanuatu’s vulnerability is its scattered population around coasts that are exposed to rising sea levels. A total of 325,000 people live across 65 islands, characterised by rugged terrain and limited infrastructure.
Despite these limitations, the country is finding new and innovative ways to protect its population against climate threats and regain its economic competitiveness.
An ongoing project on the country’s largest island, Espiritu Santo, is trialling techniques to support communities adapt. The project grant – funded by the Adaptation Fund and managed by UNDP through the Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator (AFCIA) – focuses on a number of areas that can benefit these isolated communities. Key components include ecosystem restoration, disaster preparedness, improving food security and strengthening institutions.
Disaster committees
The Paris Agreement set a clear goal of limiting global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius with the aim of keeping to a safer ceiling of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Under current scenarios, where average temperatures increase by more than 2C, island nations such as Vanuatu are predicted to lose 20% of their GDP each year due to climate disasters. This is despite data which shows Vanuatu contributed less than 0.01% of global carbon dioxide emissions.
Joses Togase, a project manager at Santo Sunset Environment Network (SSEN), an Indigenous environmental group on the island, told Climate Home News that people in the region are facing serious threats from climate change. “Rising sea levels are damaging the coastal zones and eroding valuable local resources that people depend upon to support their livelihoods,” he said.
Further inland, he commented, people are experiencing an increase in landslides, soil erosion and flooding which is impacting crop production, forest cover and access to freshwater. “The unpredictable changing weather, heavy rainfalls, droughts, very rough storms, and more frequent tropical cyclones are major challenges the communities are facing,” he added.
Climate disasters challenge right to safe and adequate housing
In response, the Espiritu Santo project has supported community leaders, forest rangers and climate-related disaster committees to adapt to a changing climate. In 2023, the island was hit by two Category 5 cyclones within a week. The committees – with the help of the SSEN – immediately undertook a damage assessment and identified emergency needs so the government could act quickly.
In the future, this work will be supported by an upgraded early warning system and improved internet access – thanks to solar-powered satellite communication – to allow the community to access live weather advice.
How to farm smart
Food security is often a concern in remote regions and extreme weather adds another layer of vulnerability to communities on Vanuatu. Under these circumstances, subsistence farmers need to switch to crops which have higher yields in a shorter growing season and are able to withstand much harsher weather conditions.
The project, alongside encouraging families to maintain their traditional methods of food production, is seeking to raise awareness of climate-smart agriculture. Demonstration plots have been established to plant drought-resistant crops, such as manioc, kumara and taro.
Growing cover crops between seasons to protect the soil, and intercropping, where more than one crop is grown side-by-side in the same field, are also promoted. These practices are designed to improve soil health, prevent erosion and protect against extreme weather.
Togase believes these practices should be shared with other Pacific islands facing similar climate threats. “The traditional planting calendar, food crop planting and preservation are some of the important lessons,” he commented.
Advancing women’s rights and empowerment in climate adaptation
Increase in local awareness
Human settlements on Vanuatu date back over 3,000 years. In that time, Indigenous peoples have dealt with a range of environmental risks. The climate crisis is the latest in that series and local people are looking to utilise – and adapt – traditional ways of life to overcome these challenges. Groups such as SSEN provide an important connection between the community and government as they collectively navigate a way forward.
According to Togase, recent interventions on Espiritu Santo have “increased understanding and realisation among the local people to become more conscious and alert” in mitigating climate threats. This has, in part, been achieved through Indigenous knowledge sharing and respecting community governance.
As Vanuatu faces an uncertain future, its people aren’t shying away from these threats, but using nature, existing customs and new ideas to their advantage.
Adam Wentworth is a freelance writer based in Brighton, UK
The post How Vanuatu is facing up to rising climate risks appeared first on Climate Home News.
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Three countries have been named by the Paris Agreement’s compliance committee for failing to submit a nationally determined contribution (NDC) and repeatedly snubbing offers of help with their climate plans.
After months of internal debate over whether to identify serial non-responders, the Paris Agreement’s Implementation and Compliance Committee (PAICC) named the three countries which have failed to engage with it over their NDCs on Friday.
It named Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and North Korea in a footnote of its annual report, adding that it decided to name them “with a view to facilitating engagement”, adding that representatives of the three nations had been invited to its meeting in early 2027 “with the purpose of identifying any challenges and constraints”.
“The Committee noted the importance of Parties engaging with the Committee in a timely manner, while noting that some delays may be due to the national capabilities and circumstances of the Parties”, the report said.
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Paris Agreement committee snubbed over missing NDC climate plans
Many governments have still not submitted a nationally determined contribution to the UN, breaching a key requirement of the Paris Agreement
In July, PAICC said 12 countries had ignored its repeated attempts to discuss why they had not published an NDC as required every five years under the 2015 Paris accord.
Members of the committee had been divided over whether to name them, but at a September meeting decided to do so in their annual report to the annual climate COP summit.
By the time the report was published on Friday, only Congo, Senegal and North Korea “had not communicated an NDC or submitted a [Biennial Transparency Report] and had not yet responded to any of the Committee’s notifications, despite several reminders issued by the Committee in this regard”.
Rainforest and renewable energy ambitions
The silence from Congo and Senegal is notable because the former is home to much of the Congo Basin rainforest while the latter has sought billions of dollars in climate finance to support its renewable energy ambitions.
After Brazil, Congo has more rainforest than any country in the world. This forest, and the country’s peatlands, absorb huge amounts of greenhouse gas but are fast being lost to expanding farmland, charcoal production, logging and mining.
Senegal signed a Just Energy Transition Partnership with Canada and wealthy European nations in 2023, to help it meet its renewable energy targets under the-then government of Macky Sall. It was chair of the Least Developed Countries group between January 2022 and December 2023.
Tejas Rao, who is researching the PAICC as part of a doctoral thesis at Cambridge University, said the governments of the three countries should engage with the committee.
“Engagement costs these governments very little and the committee has shown it will listen,” he said.
“Silence leaves the committee with no basis to help, and it leaves the [governments] exposed to the narrative that they are simply disengaged,” he told Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement requirement
The 2015 Paris Agreement requires all parties to publish an NDC every five years outlining their emissions reduction targets, with each plan meant to be more ambitious than the country’s last NDC.
The latest set – the third round of plans, with new targets for 2035 – was due in February 2025. While most countries missed this deadline, all but around 30 – mostly small emitters but including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have now submitted them.
Over the year, the PAICC – which is made up of government climate officials from developed and developing countries – has been communicating with governments that have not submitted NDCs and trying to overcome barriers to them doing so.
Some nations have cited exceptional circumstances as the reason for not submitting an NDC, a process that requires a significant amount of work in tracking emissions and consulting on how to curb them across the economy. For example, a letter from a Sudanese official to the PAICC, seen by Climate Home News, said that the country’s civil war had led to the suspension of its NDC preparation.
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The US and Iran are not signed up to the Paris Agreement and so do not have active NDCs, nor does Taiwan, which is not a UN member state.
Rao said that because the PAICC is “facilitative and non-punitive”, naming the countries “is meant to open a door, not close one – the invited consultation is the point”.
“In recent months, governments that explained their constraints, whether capacity, finance or domestic process, have been met with follow-up and support rather than sanction, and the number of silent governments has fallen sharply,” Rao said.
The post Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs appeared first on Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs
Countries have failed – for the sixth time running – to agree on the timeline for publishing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) next set of influential reports.
The IPCC’s 65th session (IPCC-65) was seen by many to be the final opportunity for countries to agree on a schedule where its seventh assessment report (AR7) would be published in time for the UN’s second “