From the Pari Agreement during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in Paris, France on 12 December up until today is 7 years and Climate Change Development Authority (CCDA) has established the entire institutional and governance framework said Climate Change Development Authority General Manager Ms. Debra Sungi.
She said the policy framework is not an easy task for Papua New Guinea because CCDA had to design policies that capture well the circumstances of our people given that such framework has to do with forestry and land issues, and these issues are very stringy given that in Papua New Guinea context that most land are customary owned.
“Every person and stakeholders need to agree what goes down in the legislatives framework and policy.”
“But so far CCDA has managed to do all with the latest passing of the Climate Change management amendment ACT, this has given us the teeth to actually go ahead and implement the activities and the laws domestically.”
With the upcoming COP 28 that will take place from 30 November until 12 December 2023 in the United Arab Emirates, PNG’s key priorities as a country is in issues surrounding loss and damages, fund mechanism and decisions that are designed to have processes that is very accessible to small Island countries including PNG.
“Development outcome is while we transition into low carbon road economy, we want to ensure as well that we have the necessary capacity that they will allow us to transit.”
“Resilient is one aspect that is important too, people need to have the ability to adapt to other impacts of climate change and also change to build infrastructural systems that can stand the impact of climate change.”
Ms Sungi further stated that most time often people ask how all these big international summits benefit someone in the village.
“Basically all the programs run by the government are actually programs that are being agreed at the international level and they had to domesticate it back into the country.”
“While those decisions are made are made at the international level during summits like COPs, we had to be there to ensure that those decisions capture the need and practicality of our country so that we come back and then domesticate it into policies so we can implement them.”
During this coming COP 28, PNG CCDA is hoping that there will be more ambitions and more actions to be taken by the developed countries, global stakeholders so that the outcome must benefit all small pacific island countries including Papua New Guinea.