Costly effects of climate change

 CLIMATE change will primarily have negative impacts on the Pacific’s key economic sectors if not properly addressed, the Office of Climate Change and Development (OCCD) says.

OCCD executive director Varigini Badira said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reported that climate would overturn the Pacific’s development achievements if not adequately addressed or if the future potential climate change impacts were ignored.

Badira said climate change would affect agriculture, fisheries and coral reefs, health and tourism sectors in the region, including Papua New Guinea.

“The report, Economics of Climate Change in the Pacific, will require US$447-US$775 (K1,082-K1,877) to prepare for climate change,” Badira said.

He said the amount was almost half of what PNG Government 

required to address climate 

change as outlined in the OCCD interim action plan for climate compatible development (APCCD) in 2010.

“The total cost to deal with climate change was forecast to double by 2030,” he said.

Badira said PNG’s top priority hazards were malaria, vector borne diseases, coastal flooding, landslides, agriculture yield change, coral reef decay and water and climate induced migration.

“Malaria is affecting half the PNG’s population and with continuing rises in temperature, 200,000 more will be affected in the Highlands. 

“The cost to address this was US$50 million,” he said.

He said coastal flooding would be made worse by rising sea levels and would cover almost 20,000km of the coastline. Severe floods would affect 26,000, displace 8000 and kill several people. It would cost an estimated US$8-US$12 million direct damage.

“Landslides will affect 500-600 and kill at least 10 annually and damage infrastructures.”

Badira said agriculture sector issues were predicted to sustain a large economic cost of US$150 million to address them.

He said coral reef decay would affect 70,000 people who earned their living from the reef system and it would cost US$170 million to address the issue.

He said those were the potential climate change losses which the government had to prepare for as it would lose economically up 

to 15.2% GDP by 2100 which was the highest percentage in the region.

The ADB report stated other impacts of climate change in the region as: temperature change, El Nino southern oscillation, rainfall, extreme weather events, cyclone and sea level rise.