Introduction to Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a country located in the Southwest Pacific and it encompasses specifically the eastern half of the island of New Guinea. PNG has a population of 10 million people1 of which 86% 2 is rural and 70% rely on subsistence agriculture. Between 30-40% of the population is in poverty,3 the brunt of which is born by women.4 The country has a tropical rainforest climate classified by high humidity, monsoons, as well as rainfall in some areas exceeding 2,500 mm of rainfall per year. Drier regions with more extreme wet and dry seasons include Markham Valley, Bulolo Valley, Maprik—Angoram area, Eastern highlands, Cape Vogel coastal areas, Port Moresby, and Daru.5 Across these regions, the country has been witnessing increasingly severe extreme weather events, particularly floods, landslides, earthquakes, heat waves, rainfall deficits, and cyclones.6  

In 2017, industrial and service sectors contributed around 80% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).3 Agriculture currently contributes 19 percent of total exports and accounts for around 25 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and provides employment, income earning opportunities and subsistence consumption for the rural majority. The major export commodities are oil palm, coffee, cocoa, copra, rubber and tea.7 Due in part to international pressure and investments, such as a 19 billion dollar investment by the US’s ExxonMobil in 2009 as well as a 3 billion dollar investment by the US’s Exim Bank into Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) projects,8 Papua New Guinea’s most valuable export commodity has become LNG with it contributing 46% of export earnings in 2022.9 Yet, PNG does not see most of this profit as 40-50% of economic activity is accounted for by the resources sector such as the oil, LNG, gold, copper, etc., but such exports only make up 10% of national revenue.10  The intensification of export-oriented fossil fuel extraction in Papua New Guinea and the precarity of subsistence agriculture and key crops exacerbate the country’s susceptibility to the climate crisis.

Mapping Major Climate Events and Climate-Induced Displacement

Papua New Guinea is highly impacted by the effects of climate change with a rank of 16 out of 191 countries in the 2024 Risk Inform Index.11 This is partly due to the effects of flood, drought, cyclones, heat waves, and other natural disasters. Additionally, the country ranks 10 out of 191 countries in terms of lack of coping capacity in the same 2024 Risk Inform Index12 particularly due to the lack of fiscal resources of individuals and the PNG government. In terms of climate impacts, PNG has been exposed to 54 reported disaster events between 2008-2022 that resulted in over 282,000 Internal Displacements.13 From 1980-2000, there were about 4 major years of flooding as compared to 2000-2020 as the number had doubled to 8 major flooding years within these last two decades.6 This has been compounded by increased rainfall variability throughout PNG as regions such as the Madang Province have experienced increasing rainfall activity since 1968-2018 and, as a result, high variability in precipitation patterns.14 Increased rainfall as well as a high frequency of severe earthquakes, with 10 earthquakes between 2014-2018 all above a 7.0 magnitude,15 has also led to growing landslide occurrence and risk.3 Moreover, PNG has demonstrated severe exposure to heat waves and these heat waves are only predicted to increase in frequency and severity in all future emissions pathway models.16 In 2015, Papua New Guinea exemplified this extreme vulnerability due to the 2015-2016 El Nino where over 1.3 million individuals experienced a famine of severe magnitude, with around 480,000 experiencing critical food shortages, due to El Nino’s impacts of extreme heat and droughts.17

Mapping the Costs of the Climate Crisis

Papua New Guinea currently has a GDP of 30.63 billion USD.18 As discussed earlier, PNG is a highly rural society with over 70% of its households relying on sustenance agriculture to meet their daily needs. Also, most of this sustenance agriculture is based upon sweet potato production as well as smaller amounts of banana, Colocasia taro, and greater yam.19 PNG is therefore exposed to severe vulnerability from climate change due to its heavy reliance on agriculture and, furthermore, reliance on a narrow array of crops. Long term effects include reduction of productivity and therefore living standards due to heat-related effects to the labor market. This includes effects not only to the agricultural industry, but other sectors such as the service sector. Examples of short term effects include the 2015-2016 El Nino affecting over 1.3 individuals in Papua New Guinea in terms of food shortages and a similar 1997 event associated with severe droughts leading to 20% of the population (over 1 million individuals) facing food shortages.20 These events highlight the susceptibility of PNG to the climate crisis, affecting food insecurity as well as individual adaptive capacity to extreme disaster events. It’s expected sweet potato yields are likely to decline by 10% by 2050, placing more stress on the individual livelihoods of this rural population.21 In regards to the fisheries sector, increasing heat and ocean acidification have played a large role in increasingly intensifying coral bleaching events. It is expected that a 2°C increase in ocean surface temperatures would likely lead to bleaching events growing from a once in every 30-year period to a once in every 4-month period.22 This would likely further intensify the impacts on the food security as well as the commercial output of PNG’s fishery sector. Taking into account the estimated effects on the agricultural industry, as well as other climate impacts, this could lead to a GDP loss of up to 15.2% by 2100.23

Mapping Resilience and Mitigation Pathways

While Papua New Guinea only contributes 0.02% of global emissions,24 the country has made strong commitments to carbon neutrality by 2050. To do this, PNG aims to improve its energy sector through a target of 78% capacity of the electric grid by 2030. Within the forestry sector, this further implies a 10,000 Gg CO2 eq reduction in emissions as compared to 2015 level of emissions that includes decreasing the prevalence of  deforestation and forest degradation within its efforts. PNG is also working to improve upon its health measures related to climate-sensitive diseases such as malaria, early warning systems to increase disaster preparedness, and infrastructure built to international standards to further climate resiliency as well as basic needs security. Through partnership of PNG’s National Weather Service, Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the WMO CREWS project, PNG has made significant progress on its early warning systems by developing a new system for detecting droughts that will be readily available to its 22 provinces.25 PNG has also made progress in developing its climate resilient infrastructure such as through its Building Resilience to Climate Change in Papua New Guinea (PNG) project that recently, in July 2023, generated the development of the Alotau Wharf. Financed by the Asian Development Bank and Australian government, a 10.5 million dollar investment led to the demolition as well as construction of a new wharf in Alotau with elevated terraces, earthquake withstanding pilings, and a market-friendly framework for the private sector.26 Yet, barriers to climate resiliency also arise as a result of temperature rise, unregulated urban growth, and an increase in indoor cooling needs. For example, a one degree increase of temperature could lead to a 0-8.5% increase in electricity demand that Papua New Guinea could potentially struggle to meet. 

Necessary Changes

Papua New Guinea remains one of the most vulnerable, frontline nations dealing with the effects of climate change. While there are plans to reduce emissions as well as invest in climate adaptation strategies, Papua New Guinea is still highly restrained by its financial burdens. For example, it is estimated that the public debt of PNG accounted for over 47.9 percent of GDP in 2022.27 Moreover, Papua New Guinea’s main industries of resource extraction (LNG, gold, oil, etc.) account for almost half of its economic activity, but, as said before, these industries only make up 10% of national revenues. Papua New Guinea remains cash-strapped and therefore unable to successfully implement national climate adaptation strategies and individuals, relying on sustenance agriculture for day to day survival, do not have the financial resources to effectively overcome these numerous climate challenges themselves. Now, it remains crucial for the international community to contribute funding as well as alleviate debt burdens on PNG to increase PNG’s autonomy and agency in implementing a just transition.

Due to the international community’s pressures on PNG to move towards an extractive economy, there have been cases of tax evasion in the mines such as the Lihir gold mines, mismanagement of similar mines such as the Ok Tedi mines that lead to pollution of local water streams as well as nearby ecosystems, and flooding of nearby villages due to the buildup of sediment from these extractive industries.28 These examples demonstrate the necessity of the international community to also provide reparations to the historical social and environmental injustices committed. Papua New Guinea also has a significant role to play in creating a more local, diversified economy, especially in terms of subsistence crops, to improve sustainability of its agricultural economy. This includes implementing national policy to create a democratic economy focused on protecting and uplifting individual laborers and workers.