Media coverage

Key Tuvalun stakeholders met in Funafuti for the BOLD Response Project Inception meeting. For Pacific communities, the consequences of climate change go far beyond the economic damages. Non-economic losses and damages can be some of the most devastating.

“This is a groundbreaking scientific study," says Bill Hare, "most previous assessments of the impacts of sea level rise based on satellite data have likely systematically underestimated exposure to severe risks, as well as the rate at which these risks will increase in the future."

Pacific adaptation and loss and damage analyst Gabriel Mara told Die Zeit "if sea-level rise is faster than currently assumed, then losses will also occur faster than our planning and forecasting models predict," says Mara. The consequences of climate change could therefore be more severe for many countries in the Global South than they have anticipated – and than they have been able to prepare for.

The work to understand the economic and non-economic losses and damages caused by climate change in Tuvalu takes another step forward this week in Funafuti, with stakeholders gathering for the Building Our Pacific Loss and Damage (BOLD) Response Project.

For Pacific communities, the consequences of climate change go far beyond the economic damages. Non-economic losses and damages can be some of the most devastating, such as losing a burial site to erosion or being forced to abandon traditional fishing practices due to marine ecosystem changes.

The injustice Pacific countries like Vanuatu continue to face as a result of a changing climate they are not responsible for, is the driving force behind their local and global climate action. In February, we held workshops in Port Vila, Vanuatu to discuss how the BOLD project can help address climate change-induced loss and damage.

The impending overshoot of the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C limit will raise the temperature and political pressure at COP talks in the future, and shift the debate from hot air to action, Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare tells Carbon Pulse.

“Two years ago, governments promised to triple renewable energy, double efficiency and act on methane.” Bill Hare, said. “Our results show if they achieved this by 2035 it would be a game-changer, quickly slowing the rate of warming in the next decade and lowering global warming this century from 2.6 degrees to about 1.7 degrees.

Bill Hare, has estimated that the Valhalla project, a controversial fracking proposal in Western Australia’s Kimberley region, “if developed as planned, would add 1.8–2.6% to Australia’s [greenhouse gas] emissions”.

“We are in the hottest decade at the moment,” said Fahad Saeed. He adds that just because 2025 didn’t take the top spot, it doesn’t mean regional records weren’t broken.