Early Warning, Early Action – poster-size guide for the Pacific

The Climate Centre and the IFRC’s Fiji-based regional office have put together a new, one-stop-shop overview poster of Early Warning, Early Action experience in the Pacific, aimed at National Societies and other agencies.

Containing short case-studies from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, the poster was presented at the recent Pacific Climate Services Forum in the Fijian capital, Suva.

“Climate science in the Pacific region is telling us that extreme events such as heavy rainfall are likely to increase,” says the poster, entitled Pacific Red Cross –Taking Early Warning, Early Action.

“These exacerbated extremes will come on top of a Pacific climate that is already extremely variable, mostly due to the El Niño Southern Oscillation [that causes] variability in rainfall, cyclones and sea level.” 

The main objective of the Suva forum, held at the University of the South Pacific and attended by about 150 people, was to discuss how the WMO’s Global Framework for Climate Services apply regionally, and how local met services can be supported to tailor early-warning information to communities.

Three climate-related educational game-sessions were also run on a “training day”, involving about 100 participants ranging from professional climatologists to NGO staff and students.
 
Substantive discussions ranged widely over the need to package climate services for end-users in the Pacific, particularly the most vulnerable groups and including links with health issues.

“Hands up for preparedness”: schoolchildren on the atoll of Funafuti, Tuvalu, with Tatua Pese, Secretary General of the Tuvalu Red Cross, which worked with meteorological and disaster management agencies to create interactive educational sessions during Disaster Risk Reduction Week. (Photo: Rebecca McNaught/Climate Centre)