State of the Environment and Conservation in the Pacific Islands: 2020 Regional Report: Indicators 23-25 - Climate resilience through environmental management

Abstract

Long timescales, uncertainties, and the multi-faceted nature of climate change adaptation makes monitoring progress in this field inherently challenging; there is no simple way to determine how well prepared we are for current and future climate change impacts. This contrasts with climate change mitigation, for which greenhouse gas emissions can be considered a universal indicator, and there are clear guidelines for preparing and analysing greenhouse gas inventories. The result is that national State of Environment (SOE) reports have tended not to provide a clear picture of progress in climate change adaptation. Encouragingly, some countries, notably Samoa (2013), Cook Islands (2016), Republic of the Marshall Islands (2016), and Federated States of Micronesia (2018), have begun to develop their own adaptation indicators for their SOE reports; however, at present, there is no regional set of indicators for adaptation and preparedness.