Second Pacific Climate Change Conference 2018

Pacific Ocean - Pacific Climate
2nd Pacific Climate Change Conference 

Nowhere is climate change, and ocean change, a more urgent issue than across the Pacific, home to many low-lying island nations and sensitive to large swings in climate from year to year.

The second Pacific Climate Change Conference hosted by Victoria University of Wellington and SPREP will bring together a broad range of voices on climate change, from the science to the impacts to the policy and public implications.

As with the first Conference in 2016, there will include a broad range of sectors, including the arts, science communities, Pacific communities and activists, business sector, faith communities, NGOs, health, and members of the public, to provide a rich exchange of diverse ideas on how to tackle this biggest of problems.

One component of the conference will be a session devoted to mitigation action under the Paris Agreement on climate change. Representatives of nations across the Pacific will be asked to report on steps being taken at the national level to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow the rate of climate change.

Keynote speakers:
Honourable Tuila‘epa Dr Sa‘ilele Malielegaoi
Prime Minister of Samoa
Tuila‘epa Dr Sa‘ilele Malielegaoi, Samoa’s longest serving Prime Minister, was one of the leading Pacific Island voices at the Climate Change Conference that led to the Paris Agreement in December 2015. He continues to play a key role in the international fight to mitigate and reduce the effects of anthropogenic climate change. Samoa aims to achieve 20 percent carbon neutrality by 2030 and 100 percent renewable energy in power generation, and has developed a number of solar energy arrays and biofuel projects to achieve these ambitious goals.

“It is very important that our Pacific Island countries come together at this conference and all nations take action to stop climate change. Rising sea levels means that the very survival of our island homes is at risk.”

Professor Will Steffen
Emeritus Professor, Australian National University

"There is no area more at risk from climate change than the Pacific island states. The Pacific Climate Change Conference is unique in bringing together a very broad range of concerned people - from political leaders to citizens to scientists and artists - to explore the rapidly changing nature of these risks and what can be done to meet them."

Professor Michael Mann
Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Pennsylvania State University

"I am honored to be giving a keynote address at this important conference. We are at a crossroads when it comes to dealing with the threat of human-caused climate change. We must make a concerted effort if we are to avoid dangerous and potentially irreversible changes in climate. Such an effort requires that the scientific community remain engaged with stakeholders, policymakers, and other academics and opinion leaders as chart a path forward that builds on the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement. That is precisely what the Pacific Climate Change Conference 2018 seeks to do, and I couldn’t be more pleased to be a part of it."

Professor Daniel Nocera
Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University

Dr Patila Malua-Amosa
Dean, Faculty of Science, National University of Samoa

Sir Geoffrey Palmer
Distinguished Fellow, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington

"I am going to this Conference because climate change is the most important issue facing humankind."

Julian Aguon
Founder, Blue Ocean Law

Professor D. Kapua’ala Sproat
Associate Professor & Director of the Native Hawaiian Law Center

Professor Elisabeth Holland
Professor of Climate Change, Pacific Center for Environment and Sustainable Development, University of the South Pacific_

Aroha Te Pareake Mead
Independent researcher from Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Porou (Māori), Aotearoa New Zealand

Dr James Renwick
Professor of Physical Geography, Victoria University of Wellington and conference convenor