Thursday 5 November 2015

$24m grant to tackle climate change in Papua New Guinea

A $24.25 million (£16m) grant is being provided to help Papua New Guinea (PNG) build resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) aims to raise development planning capacity – allowing the government to scale up investments in climate resilience.

It will help integrate climate risk and resilience planning into development policies.

The project includes conducting climate change and vulnerability assessments and preparing adaptation plans for vulnerable communities.

An early warning system linked to PNG’s National Disaster Center will also be improved.

According to a recent report by ADB the country’s economy is “likely to suffer the biggest losses in the Pacific from climate change impacts”.

The report estimates severe failures in sweet potato and other agricultural crops, as well as land losses due to a rise in the sea level and other impacts from climate change, could trigger a loss of up to 15.2% of PNG’s GDP by 2100.

Marilou Drilon, Senior Natural Resources Economist at ADB, said: “The target areas for support were identified through a participatory process considering risk factors in the most vulnerable sectors of infrastructure, natural resources, health and agriculture.”