29 March 2016: The Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), under the guidance of its member States, has announced its upcoming adoption of an action plan for operationalizing its regional adaptation strategy from 2016-2020, pointing to the climate change vulnerabilities of the southwest Indian Ocean island States. The plan will aim to identify the specific vulnerabilities of member States, support them in their adaptation actions and realize the measures set forth in their intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) to the UNFCCC.

Noting that over the past 20 years, the region has experienced more than 50 natural catastrophic events, amounting to more than US$17 billion in economic costs, the IOC underlines in a press release that implementing this plan builds on its advocacy for Indian Ocean island States, as well as other small island developing States (SIDS), in various international climate change policymaking fora.

The Commission highlights its involvement in, and the importance of, the UN International Conference on SIDS in 2014 and, in 2015, the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), the UN Summit for the Adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda and the Paris Climate Change Conference. The plan will help implement Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 (Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts) in the region.

The plan is being supported financially and technically by the Intra-ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States) programme of the Global Climate Change Alliance+ (GCCA+), funded by the EU. The Intra-ACP programme works toward enabling ACP States to tackle climate change and development challenges through technical assistance, partnerships, dialogue and knowledge sharing.

In preparation for the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the UNFCCC, which took place in November-December 2015, the COP initiated a process by which countries put forward their “bottom-up” pledges for post-2020 action. This pledge became known as an INDC and, thus far, 189 Parties have submitted INDCs. A country’s INDC will serve as its initial NDC when entering into the Paris Agreement, unless it decides to revise it and submit the updated version upon ratification or acceptance of the Agreement. [IOC Press Release (in French)] [GCCA+ Intra-ACP Programme Webpage]