The COVID-19 pandemic should not be an excuse for wealthy nations and global major emitters to delay ambitious climate action, says Samoa's Associate Minister of Natural Resources and Environment.

Faleomavaega Titimaea Tafua said this at the opening of the 2nd Annual Intra-Climate Services and Related Applications (ClimSA ) Forum hosted by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) ond Monday.

Addressing the forum on behalf of the Samoa Government, Faleomavaega said the forum's main objective is to provide a platform for information exchange and learning, on how best to improve the effectiveness of climate services applications, through user-friendly climate-smart Decision Support System (DSS) tools to integrate climate information with sector-specific requirements and management models to combat climate change.

"In this regard, a Socio-Economic Benefit (SEB) tool, development under the ClimSA programme to guide actionable climate-informed decision-making in climate-sensitive factors, will be showcased and scrutinised," the Associate Minister said.

"ClimSA is important because it is focused on the strengthening of the climate services value chain, form data acquisition to the generation of information and the provision of climate services, to enable the engagement and capacity of users of climate services and related applications.

"It seeks to achieve this through providing technical and capacity-building support and institutional strengthening and awareness raising to eight Regional Climate Centres (RCCs) located in the six regions of the OACPS."

Faleomavaega then acknowledged with appreciation the implementing authorities OACPS Secretariat, the UN Specialized agency World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) for the Intra-ACP Climate Services and Related Application Programme (ClimSA). The full programme cost €85 million.

According to Faleomavaega, the successful implementation of these actions will implement new and strengthen existing tools to build the capacity of climate services stakeholders and users in climate-sensitive sectors to be guided by and to implement the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) at all levels.

He added that the programme provides an opportune time, given the recent Sixth Assessment report by the ICCC which reaffirmed that the ‘climate change emergency’ is happening now. 

"The report speaks to the risks of exceeding 1.5 degree Celsius, from extreme weather events to sea level rise to biodiversity loss, for our Blue Pacific continent, these are risks we cannot afford," said the Associate Minister.

"We need to take meaningful, measurable and effective climate action aimed at limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degree Celsius. 

"We recognize the double burden of addressing the parallel crises of climate change and the pandemic but the COVID-19 pandemic is not an excuse for wealthy nations and global major emitters to delay ambitious climate action. 

"It takes a global community to take collective climate action and live up to their respective responsibilities and obligations, this programme is a step in the right direction to this goal."

The Associate Minister said The ClimSA project is necessary for the Pacific as climate variability and change is already being experienced, and will continue to impact national economics and key socio-economic sectors without this large-scale resilience intervention.

"Samoa, Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga will benefit from upgrading their weather observations stations to improve the quality of the climate data to support tailored products for decision making," Faleomavaega said.

"The rest of the Pacific ACP members- Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu also stand to benefit from this programme."

The SPREP as the lead agency for the implementing the Pacific component of ClimSA, with a budget of €9 million as well as the Pacific Meteorological Desk Partnership, were acknowledged by Faleomavaega for their work and leadership.

The ClimSA 2022 Forum, with the theme "Advancing Climate Services and related Applications through Decision Support System tools” will run from Monday 26 September to