Climate change has brought one of the greatest challenges to worldwide decision makers due to its complexity and uncertainty. Many low lying countries and small island developing states in the Pan Pacific region are particularly vulnerable to climate change. As an island country located at the hub of the Pan Pacific, Taiwan could play a crucial role in facilitating technique and experience sharing of climate change adaptation strategies within the region. In view of this, the project was implemented to build up a Pan Pacific partnership on climate change adaptation, and three main works have been done to fulfill the objective of the project. First of all, the project searched for several established international initiatives and partnerships focusing on climate change adaptation in order to form a proper strategy for Taiwan to initiate an adaptation partnership. Organizations that had been analyzed included public-private partnerships (PPPs) under United Nations and Pacific climate-related organizations. Secondly, the project succeeded in holding the ‘2014 Pan Pacific Partnership on Climate Change Adaptation Conference’, which gathered experts and national representatives from the US, Southeast Asia and South Pacific islands to mutually share the most updated knowledge, tools and solutions for tackling climate change. All participants came to a consensus agreeing that an international partnership on adaptation is especially essential for the region as we are exposed to similar threats posed by climate change such as extreme weather events, sea level rise, and so on. Lastly, adaptation solutions could be more effective and efficient by improving transparency of and accessibility to climate-related information and data. Based on the idea, the project proposed a plan for setting up an open climate data portal in Taiwan (climate.gov.tw). With sufficient information for risk assessment, government, industries as well as the public could reduce their lost from climate change as they could adopt immediate responses to potential disasters in advance.

Climate Change Adaptation, Pan Pacific Region, International Partnership