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Human dimensions of environmental change in small island developing states: some common themes

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Abstract

Climate change and its consequence of sea level rise are major issues for small island developing states (SIDS), as they worsen many other pressures on their people and their environment. Accordingly, articles in this special issue of Regional Environmental Change on SIDS address research gaps in the following thematic areas of the human dimensions of climate change. (1) Islander perceptions of climate change and the information sources on which these are based. (2) Migration to richer countries, which dominates popular media articles, so that scholars from a wide range of disciplines have given their perspectives on it. For many SIDS, however, relocation within that country is much more of an issue, but little studied as yet. (3) Community-based adaptation, a theme which only rarely appears in peer-reviewed journals. (4) National, regional and international policies and the effectiveness of their implementation. (5) Social and cultural issues arising from the above. This paper provides an overview of these and some related themes of importance to SIDS, including ocean acidification and land degradation. Researchers based in the SIDS and regional organisations have an important role in recognising these issues and in developing the local skills base needed to deal with them. The Paris Agreement of 2015 is a positive (but as yet inadequate) step towards the international action on climate change that SIDS need.

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Notes

  1. Note that some papers in this special issue use a longer list of SIDS, with fewer of the exclusions above (Robinson and Dornan 2016; Robinson and Gilfillan 2016).

  2. The Pacific Community (its new name since November 2015) was founded in 1947 as the South Pacific Commission and known since then mainly by its initials (SPC)—including on its own website! As a provider of technical advice and assistance SPC services not only the independent Pacific SIDS but also the Pacific territories of USA and France.

  3. The lead author of this paper, Katherine Schmutter, died in December 2015; the published article stands as a posthumous tribute to her memory.

  4. The phrase ‘above pre-industrial levels’ in the Agreement is important because present GMST is already ~ 0.8oC above pre-industrial (i.e. that of c.1850 AD).

  5. ‘loss and damage’ in this context refers particularly to that beyond which adaptation is feasible.

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Acknowledgements

Stacy Robinson has greatly helped to widen the coverage of this special issue, by her active solicitation of articles from her extensive network of researchers working in and on small island states in the Caribbean region and in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. As Guest Editors, we also thank all the contributors and anonymous reviewers for their important contribution to this Special Issue, and to the editorial team at Regional Environmental Change for their support and assistance. We gratefully acknowledge the input to the section on the Paris Agreement in this article by the following delegates to COP 21: Dawn Pierre-Nathoniel (St. Lucia), Ian Fry (Tuvalu) and Mahendra Kumar (Pacific Islands Development Forum).

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  1. Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Tony Weir & Jamie Pittock

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Correspondence to Tony Weir.

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Weir, T., Pittock, J. Human dimensions of environmental change in small island developing states: some common themes. Reg Environ Change 17, 949–958 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-017-1135-3

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