COP 21

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill announced at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 held in Paris, France, that PNG will be planting 800,000ha of forest.

At the Paris climate conference, 195 countries adopted the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal.

The agreement sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C.

O’Neill committed PNG to make available up to two million hectares of rain forest for this course.

The declaration says even keeping warming to 1.5˚C, as more than 190 governments have agreed to,  will not stave off some climate impacts already being felt by the most vulnerable nations. 

“For the sake of our most vulnerable island nations and the oceans on which they depend, the COP21 agreement must limit global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius,” said Dame Meg Taylor, Pacific Ocean Commissioner.

“The ocean, climate and weather are all linked. The impacts of climate change on our ocean are already being felt by many of us.”

 “Sea level rise, storm surges, ocean acidification, coral bleaching and cyclones are increasing in intensity and frequency,” the Pacific Ocean Commissioner said.