Australian funded K50 million PNG climate FIRST project launched

The new K50 million [AUD 20 million] PNG Climate FIRST [Finance Initiative for Resilience and a Sustainable Transition] project was officially launched on Monday by the PNG and Australian governments in Port Moresby.

National Capital District Governor Parkop, the Australian High Commissioner to PNG John Feakes, and Director General of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), Dr. Frank Rijsberman, who is on a week’s official visit to Papua New Guinea were on hand to launch the project.

This project is set to mobilize and secure significant international and domestic climate financing and investments that will fund transformative projects on climate adaptation and mitigation for Papua New Guinea.

It will be implemented over the next four years through a PNG-led collaboration with Australia, other partners, national stakeholders, and delivery partner, Global Green Growth Institute, and is aimed at ensuring PNG’s access to international climate finance to address climate change in the country, particularly at the provincial level where the risks and impacts are most profound.

Governor Parkop said this initiative is part of government’s commitment to work together with Australia to tackle the impacts of climate change under the PNG-Australia Climate Change Action Plan..

He said climate change is adversely impacting the invaluable pristine natural resources and assets, business and economic sectors, communities, and peoples, and way of life right across the country and such asistance is very helpful.

“The time for action is now, and we cannot tackle this challenge alone but with our development partners such as Australia and others, including the private sector and civil society that are doing their best to help Papua New Guinea”, said Governor Parkop.

The Australian High Commissioner, His Excellency John Feakes, said that Climate FIRST would be an opportunity to unlock funding for new climate-resilient projects to benefit men, women and children from diverse communities across PNG.

“Australia has listened to PNG’s feedback on its climate priorities. We know that accessing a greater share large-scale funding for high-quality projects is at the top of that list of priorities.”

“We are optimistic that Climate FIRST will boost PNG’s ability to build resilience to climate change at the community level, and support PNG’s transition to a low-carbon economy”, said His Excellency John Feakes.

Meanwhile, the Director General of GGGI, Dr. Frank Rijsberman, in his remarks thanked the Government of Australia for funding Climate FIRST and thanked the Government of Papua New Guinea for its support for GGGI as an embedded partner based at CCDA in Port Moresby since 2018.

He said Climate FIRST is planned on a scale that will generate significant transformative impacts for Papua New Guineans and their communities in seven target provinces making them become more resilient and adaptative to the adverse impacts of climate change.

“GGGI will more than double the size of its Team in Papua New Guinea in the coming months with provincial staff to be appointed and also embedded in the seven provinces that Climate FIRST will be supporting to coordinate the implementation of the project at the subnational provincial level,” he said.

The seven target provinces are Enga, Milne Bay, New Ireland, Chimbu, Eastern Highlands, Morobe and Manus.