Pacific Community offsets flight carbon dioxide emissions

Suva

The Pacific Community’s (SPC) Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT) has made a commitment to reduce its carbon footprint as it travels to provide technical assistance to Pacific governments and civil societies.

This comes after RRRT signed an agreement with EKOS, a New Zealand based-charity dedicated to environmental protection and social development, to offset carbon dioxide emissions from all RRRT staff flights. A carbon offset is a credit for greenhouse gas reductions achieved by one party that can be purchased and used to compensate (offset) the emissions of another party.

Through this partnership, all emissions related to travel will generate revenue for communities who have given up rights to logging timber and generate carbon credits officially sold on the voluntary carbon market. This scheme is certified by the Plan Vivo standard, the world’s leading Fair trade, community-based rainforest carbon standard.

The agreement demonstrates the programme’s commitment to a reduction in carbon emissions as another way to help curtail the impact of climate change on Pacific people’s rights to health, culture, family and well-being.

Under the agreement, RRRT is committing to offset annually all the flights its Suva and in-country staff undertake for work across the Pacific region, with EKOS then facilitating the carbon offsetting through its two rainforest conservation projects in Fiji and Vanuatu; in Fiji the Drawa Forest Project in Vanua Levu to conserve mature indigenous rainforest through avoiding forest degradation and legal protection of forest area; and in Vanuatu the Loru forest project in Santo to avoid deforestation through forest protection and management, and rehabilitate degraded forest areas.

“As RRRT starts to work more closely on mainstreaming a rights-based and community-centred approach within SPC and in climate change programming, the overall idea is to apply internally RRRT’s advice to member countries. This includes our commitment to an integrated approach to minimize travels within work countries to reduce carbon footprints,” SPC’s RRRT Acting Director, Nicol Cave said.

This offset scheme was set up in collaboration with SPC’s Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability programme, based in Noumea.

“RRRT has been very supportive to our internal environmental sustainability programme from its origin in 2012. This offset scheme is another demonstration of their great motivation on addressing their impact over climate change through more carbon friendly activities. I hope this incentive will give ideas to others in the region, as it is very simple and affordable,” SPC’s Environmental Sustainability Coordinator, Aude Chenet, said.

Media contact:
Onorina Saukelo   RRRT Communications Assistant, [email protected] or +679 330 5582

About Us:
SPC is the principal scientific and technical organisation in the Pacific region, supporting sustainable development since 1947. It is an intergovernmental development organisation owned and governed by its 26 country and territory members.

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SPC Regional Rights Resource Team

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