Centres chosen for climate project

By SALLY TIWARI
THREE cities and eight communities in 11 provinces on the Northern Coast and the Islands region of Papua New Guinea have been chosen to pilot the climate change Adaptation Fund project.
The cities are Lae, Madang and Wewak, with communities in provinces being New Ireland, Manus and Northern.Office of Climate Change and Development acting executive officer Varigini Badira said the project was approved in March by the Adaptation Fund Board, a financing facility established to fund climate change adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that were parties to the Kyoto protocol and vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
At an inception workshop on the Adaptation Fund project yesterday in Port Moresby, Badira said the four-year project aimed to enhance the adaptive capacity of communities to climate change related floods.
He said the communities of the Northern coastal regions and the Islands faced coastal flooding risks, while North Coast region river communities were exposed to inland flooding.
He said flooding was one of the six most serious climate induced hazards.
He said PNG was one of the fortunate developing countries that received funding of more than US$6 million (K12.5 million) and the government encouraged key implementing participants to take part in implementing this project.He said the workshop aimed to help implementing partners understand the different project components, discuss the scope of work involved, defined roles and responsibilities and clarified  technical and managerial aspects of the project.He said although the office faced and enormous task of implementing it there had been overwhelming support from members of the Adaptation Technical Working Group.“We will align wherever possible with the programmes so that our efforts complement each other to see tangible outcomes,” he said.
 UN resident coordinator David McLachlan Karr said the adaptation fund had dedicated more than US$115 million (K239 million) to increase climate change resilience in 18 countries, one of which was Papua New Guinea.