President Obama on Thursday announced $40 million in new funding to try to bolster Pacific Ocean islands’ defenses against climate change.
The announcement comes on the heels of Obama’s Wednesday speech in Lake Tahoe, where he announced $30 million in conservation efforts for the area. He then traveled to Hawaii to speak to the Pacific Island Conference of Leaders and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress. He will travel Thursday to Midway Atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Midway Atoll is in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, which Obama expanded to an area twice the size of Texas last week. While there, he plans to speak about how climate change is affecting Pacific islands.
The island is a major battlefield from World War II where the United States gained its first major victory over Japan. The battle is regarded as a turning point in the Pacific theater of the war.
Among the funding initiatives announced by the White House are: $5 million for regional organizations that help address the needs of Pacific Islanders; $9 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development to help national governments stave off the effects of climate change through the Climate Ready program; $15 million for disaster risk reduction programs next year; and $1.7 million in grants from the Pacific American Climate Fund to help communities adapt to climate change.
The U.S. also will send $8 million to a World Bank trust fund that supports a disaster and climate insurance facility for Pacific islands.
“These steps come as sea level rise and the increased strength and frequency of catastrophic weather events pose an existential threat to places most vulnerable to their impacts, such as the Pacific Islands,” the White House said in a fact sheet announcing the funding.
The Pacific islands are seen as ground zero for the effects of climate change. Predictions of rising sea levels have caused many nations to take actions to protect their populations, including some nations that have bought land elsewhere to prepare for possible relocation.
