How Covid Priorities Have ‘shelved’ PNG Climate Change Action

Tuesday, 22 September 2020, 9:24 am
Press Release: Pacific Media Centre

asiapacificreport.nz/2020/09/21/how-covid-priorities-have-shelved-png-climate-change-action/

By Sri Krishnamurthi September 21, 2020

The project video – read the linked story.

By Sri Krishnamurthi of the Pacific Media Centre

Climate change action has been “shelved” for the moment in Papua New Guinea says a postgraduate media researcher from the tourism and environmental friendly city of Madang.

“Climate change initiatives are on the shelf right now because the focus is on battling covid-19,” says Stephanie Sageo-Tapungu about the crisis facing her country.

Papua New Guinea is one of the worst hit countries by the global pandemic in a region where most Pacific countries have been able to keep the coronavirus at bay.

READ MORE: InfoPacific – the geojournalism project

She has reveal to me the impact of the coronavirus and how it has derailed climate change action in her homeland.

Sageo-Tapungu is concerned that covid-19 has forced climate change into a secondary role but it still remains a serious concern, especially for her home province of Madang.

She talking with the Pacific Media Centre’s Climate Change and Covid-19 Pacific project as part of a series of interviews which the PMC’s Pacific Media Watch has taken with funding from the Internews Earth Journalism Network (EJN).

Sageo-Tapungu was in the process of returning to her home and family after completing doctoral studies at Auckland University of Technology in Aotearoa New Zealand with concerns for both during this recent interview.

In the latest Papua New Guinea covid-19 statistics today, the country had reported 517 cases of covid-19 infection and seven deaths.

This is a video in a series of articles by the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch as part of an environmental project funded by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Asia-Pacific initiative.

© Scoop Media