The 2013 Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo will be held jointly with the 2013 Islands & Isolated Communities Congress at the Hawai‘i Convention Center starting tomorrow September 9th, and through September 11.
The event is the preeminent meeting place for international leaders and energy experts at the forefront of the clean energy movement. Securing energy independence and developing a clean energy industry that promotes the vitality of our planet are two reasons why it is critical to reaffirm already established partnerships and build new ones throughout the Asia-Pacific region and the world. The Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo and the Islands & Isolated Communities Congress provide a forum for the high-level global networking necessary to advance this emerging clean energy culture.
Islands and Isolated Communities are the planet’s vanguard societies facing imported energy dependencies, constrained resources, and vulnerability to climate change. Join global leaders developing solutions and projects; from island nations worldwide, to land-locked greening cities, to isolated military installations.
The sustainability and resiliency of island communities depends on best practices developed in energy, water, agriculture, security, resource and disaster risk management and societal actions. As island communities are facing these complex and interdependent challenges across the planet, the Islands and Isolated Communities Congress is focused on building a global movement to champion these solutions. The solutions developed on islands will lay the foundation for best practices world-wide.
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| Auyuittuq - The Land that Never Melts is Melting |
Many Strong Voices (MSV) will be represented here by Nick Robson, D-G of the Cayman Institute who sits on MSV's Advisory Committee.
The goal of Many Strong Voices is to promote the well-being, security, and sustainability of coastal communities in the Arctic and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) by bringing these regions together to take action on climate change mitigation and adaptation, and to tell their stories to the world.
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| Coastal Erosion - Seychelles |
The Arctic and SIDS are barometers of global environmental change. As they are on the frontlines of climate change, they are also critical testing grounds for the ideas and programmes that will strengthen the adaptive capacities of human societies confronting climate change.
Lessons learned through MSV support policy development at local, regional, and international levels. They provide decision-makers in the two regions with the knowledge to safeguard and strengthen vulnerable social, economic, and natural systems. More
The good news this week is that a new Pacific regional pact, the Majuro Declaration, calling for aggressive action to combat climate change has achieved a “major accomplishment” by gaining U.S. support, officials said Sunday.
The Majuro Declaration, endorsed by the 15-nation Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) at their summit last week, contains specific pledges on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
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| Majuro, Marshall Islands |
The PIF nations, some of which are barely a meter above sea level and risk being swamped by rising waters, have since received wide support led by the United States after presenting the document to more than two dozen countries at a post-forum dialogue.
U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced during the session a new climate change fund for Pacific islands vulnerable to rising sea levels.
“Climate change is the defining challenge of our time,” she said in launching the Pacific-American fund.
Separately, the U.S. was offering US$24 million over five years for projects in “vulnerable coastal communities” in the Pacific, she said. More
