The ongoing battle against climate change is the key motivation behind a Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) initiative to join Pacific islands journalists to amplify stories revolving around “Loss and Damage”.

Held for the first time, journalists from across the region, including Cook Islands, are in Samoa for the three-day training to touch base on the losses and the damages being experienced in the Pacific due to climate change, and dive deeper into this ongoing regional battle.

This comes six months after the COP29, where the Cook Islands, alongside other Pacific nations, advocated for increased climate finance and decisive action to address the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities.

Prime Minister Mark Brown at the time expressed frustrations with the lack of progress on climate finance and the resistance to scaling it up, calling for stronger commitment from world leaders.

In Apia, Samoa, this week, the director general of SPREP, Sefanaia Nawadra, welcomed the media, highlighting the significance of their role in their respective Pacific Islands countries.

“I remember we were at Sharm El-Sheikh, a day before the opening, we had a big flood in Pakistan, and suddenly you couldn’t ignore the loss and damage anymore when you were going into the negotiations. And I think that had a very big role in being accepted at Sharm El-Sheikh in COP27 because it was in your face. There was media in Pakistan reporting it, globally it was picked up and the connection with working at COP was quickly made,” Nawadra told the regional journalists.

“It made it easier for our negotiators to really bring this forward. There’s also an aspect of timing. Timing of how you convey information and communicate the important aspects of the work that have been done.”

Nawadra reminded the represented media organisations about the significance of their role with the hope that the participants consider these throughout this media training.

“I hope these are some of the things that you will discuss and consider because you have a big role in sometimes raising the pulse to get excitement to it.”

The Loss and Damage initiative has now become an established part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process.

It has its own programme under the San Diego network and has its own fund established by the initial capitalisation of pledges of $700 million.

According to Nawadra, this initial capitalisation is a good start “but it’s way below what’s needed”.

“Some estimates are $400 billion a year that’s required and so getting things going again depends on the will of the public, manifest it in a political way so that things can be changed,” he added.

“I think we also have a role to play when you go to these things to help your leaders and your ministers. I think sometimes we can criticise them too much, sometimes they need our help too.”

The Cook Islands, like other Small Island Developing States (SIDS), faces existential threats from rising sea levels, extreme weather events and other climate impacts.

• Talaia Mika is attending the three-day training sponsored by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme.