a paper on particularities of the negotiating process at the IMO

Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

IPCC, 2019: IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, M. Tignor, E. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Nicolai, A. Okem, J. Petzold, B. Rama, N.M. Weyer (eds.)

James Hansen writes in simple terms what young people need to understand and affect the political process on creating change beyond COP 26.

Coalition of Atoll Nations on Climate Change CANCC 2016 Leaders Summit,

In this paper, Joung, Kang, Lee and Ahn have concluded that it is inevitable for the domestic shipping and shipbuilding industry to undergo some changes such as strengthen regulations (EEDI/SEEMP), introduction of Market-Based Measures (MBM), and using alternative fuel vessel since the initial GHG strategy se up by the IMO; international shipping sector should be focused on and research on the nextgeneration eco-friendly fuel propulsion ships such as the hydrogen fuel cell, ammonia, bio-fuels etc; Finally, member states of IMO has to establish a national strategy (or National Action Plan, NAP) and to prepare short-, mid-, long-term measures and systematic approach to implement the IMO GHG reduction strategy to the relevant sectors.

Nicholas Chan talks about the politically sensitive negative impacts of mitigation action (response measures) on economic development. The article covers a progression of history, starting from the origin of the first decade of response measures, the second decade of institutional evolution of how response measures are discussed, the third part covers the evolution of discussions on the scope of response measures within broader context of trade, gender and health and concludes by capturing the country conceptions of institutional progress that arose in the negotiations leading up to the Paris outcomes and the compromises reached.

The main link of solidarity in the G-77 coalition: the idea that all countries in the global South share a common predicament in the global system, with the North solely to blame. Drawing upon this case, Roberts and Ciplet offer three related insights to develop ecologically unequal exchange theory.

Executive Summary:

This briefing is set within the context of the climate emergency and the significant gaps which exist between stated ambitions and plans, and the necessary carbon trajectories to ‘keep 1.5 °C alive’.

Very significant demands for new infrastructure are put forward by bodies at the National, Sub National and Local level, and the National Infrastructure Commission is beginning work for the second National Infrastructure Needs Assessment.

However, partly as a result of central government siloes, the carbon implications of infrastructure have not been adequately considered in the strategic cases advanced to date. This has to change and there is an appetite for this to happen.

This paper raises discusses how Pacific Island Countries have the ability to change the narrative of security in the Pacific through the lens of Climate Security and Climate Crisis. The Blue Pacific identity frames the Pacific’s own security narrative and agenda under the Boe Declaration.

From this workshop discussions revealed challenges in defining the region and security. A key feature of this was which states are part of the ‘Pacific region’, and in particular, how metropolitan partners, Australia, New Zealand, France, Japan and the US, fit into the region. This has practical consequences, particularly when these larger states have different priorities and interests to PICs, and raises questions about the robustness of the PIF’s convening power and coordinating role.

This paper is in four parts. Part one explores the Blue Pacific, explaining that contemporary regionalism in the Pacific draws from a well-established pan-oceanic identity to negotiate shared challenges. Part two considers the ways that the Pacific Ocean itself is changing in response to a warming climate, with devastating consequences for the security of Pacific island states. It also details the Pacific’s collective diplomacy on climate change. Part three explores the return of geostrategic competition to the Pacific Ocean—as a rising China begins to challenge US sea-power in the western Pacific—and evaluates the response of Pacific island states. The fourth and final section explores Australia’s place in relation to the Blue Pacific and considers tensions between Australia’s strategy of regional integration and the collective diplomacy of Pacific island states.

Abstract : Most Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are still not eligible for concessional financing because they are classified as middle- or high-income countries. But they are more vulnerable than income data alone might suggest. SIDS face severe structural challenges due to their remoteness, economic concentration, and dependence on external flows such as remittances, foreign direct investment, and tourism revenues. The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly exacerbated these vulnerabilities by restricting travel, collapsing investment and tourism, and weakening the economies from which remittances are sent. This paper constructs a multidimensional vulnerability index (MVI) to account for both long- term structural vulnerabilities as well as the recent weaknesses uncovered by the pandemic. Using 11 indicators for 126 countries (including 34 SIDS), the MVI demonstrates that all but 5 SIDS are far more vulnerable than their income level would suggest.

Abstract: Institutional developments in Pacific Islands regionalism have been dramatic in recent years. These include the changing role of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement, a grouping of eight ‘tuna-rich’ Pacific Island states that is transforming the dynamics of regional fisheries; the emergence of a more activist Melanesian Spearhead Group, which comprises the four largest economies of the Pacific Islands and is leading the process of regional economic integration; and the establishment of the Pacific Islands Development Forum. Against the backdrop of an increasingly dynamic geopolitical and geo-economic landscape, Pacific Island states are using alternative regional frameworks to develop new approaches to the challenges facing them.

This report summarizes existing evidence and estimates of the impacts and costs of climate-related hazards, as well as expands on these findings to provide new estimates of the potential global costs of climate change for shipping and ports.

Decarbonisation measures are yet to be confirmed by the IMO to reach a 1.5 degree temperature warming cap. This slow progress has prompted researchers to advocate for a carbon price that enables polluters to pay for emissions and the revenue gained to be used as compensation to those vulnerable or most affected in the Pacific Island Countries.

Fry explores the political significance of Pacific Regionalism activity for Pacific societies and its political meaning within a broader global politics. It examines the power of the regional site of politics and  diplomacy vis-a-vis that of the postcolonial state, on the one hand,  and  that of the global order, on the other.

Gradwell Studies Fiji's responses to regionalism in the Pacific that is manifested, predominantly by established post-colonial institutions such as the Pacific Islands Forum and the Pacific Community. This thesis unpacks the distinct meanings and motivations underpinning these developments, and in doing so explores how regional developments have mirrored global trends in the American led liberal order, offering lessons for policymakers both within the region and beyond.

Two questions underlie this chapter’s discussions and are fundamental to understanding the role of the Blue Pacific in the region’s contemporary geopolitics: (i) What are the tension points between the Blue Pacific as a countermap and counternarrative and the Indo-Pacific and Maritime Silk Road as the new geopolitical maps drawn by the US and China? (ii) Can the Blue Pacific, as a framework for assertive Pacific diplomacy, successfully counter the new dominant narratives and cartographies?

The media play a powerful role in distilling and conveying information to the public, and the importance of the media to public understanding of climate change is well studied (e.g., Anderson 2013; Sampei and Aoyagi-Usui 2009; Stamm et al. 2000). But while several studies have connected the negotiating power of Pacific Islands to media attention (e.g., Farbotko and McGregor 2010), little empirical data exists to bolster these claims that media coverage of Pacific Island actions at UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meetings opens up the possibility for these actions to shape the negotiations. Through an analysis of reporting on Pacific Islands and climate change (PICC) in American, British, and Australia newspapers—and how it differs around UNFCCC meetings— this study aims to fill that gap

The workshop was a rare opportunity to bring together scholars and practitioners working, on the one hand, on Australia’s strategy and defence and, on the other hand, on the interests of the Pacific Islands. The discussions revealed that Australians, New Zealanders and Pacific Islanders were concerned about the implications of the changing geopolitics of the region, but that they did not always share the same geopolitical perspective

The extremely uneven and inequitable impacts of climate change mean that differently-located people experience, respond to, and cope with the climate crisis and related vulnerabilities in radically different ways. The coloniality of climate seeps through everyday life across space and time, weighing down and curtailing opportunities and possibilities through global racial capitalism, colonial dispossessions, and climate debts. Decolonizing climate needs to address the complexities of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, international development, and geopolitics that contribute to the reproduction of ongoing colonialities through existing global governance structures, discursive framings, imagined solutions, and interventions. This requires addressing both epistemic violences and material outcomes. By weaving through such mediations, I offer an understanding of climate coloniality that is theorized and grounded in lived experiences.