The climate change advisor for the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme says the Pacific region needs to work fast to ensure it can adapt to the effects of climate change.
A study released this week into small islands for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, found that islands in the South Pacific are already experiencing the effects of climate change.
Espen Ronneberg says the regions governments and New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research are working closely with SPREP to find solutions, but it's a huge undertaking.
"We've been working on this for the last ten years, we have some successes in the region but there's still a long way to go. One of the things that has emerged from the IPC is that the actions that we take in the next 10 to 20 years will be quite instrumental in determining whether or not first of all we'll be able to mitigate the green house gases and secondly whether we will be able to adapt."
Espen Ronneberg says SPREP is looking at ways of strengthening resilience of coral reefs and mangroves, increasing water tank storage capacity and planting salt water resistant crops, as ways to help islands adapt to climate change.