What risks does climate change pose to the Coral Triangle?
Climate change leads to increased ocean acidification, rising sea levels and stresses marine and coastal ecosystems, including coral reefs. In 2010, ocean warming caused extensive coral bleaching in the Coral Triangle. Rising sea levels threaten low-lying islands, kill mangroves and destroy critical nursery grounds for local reef fisheries. Increasing climate variability and extreme weather events lead to flooding of coastal villages and infrastructure, damages agricultural lands and erodes valuable coastlines.

Why is it important to strengthen climate change adaptation capacity in the Coral Triangle?
The impacts of climate change are expected to be among the most extreme in the archipelagic nations and small island states that make up the Coral Triangle—from losses in fisheries to increased risks in coastal areas and threats to public safety. The Coral Triangle’s valuable mangroves, salt marshes and sea grasses provide an important carbon sink critical for mitigating climate change. There is an immediate need to strengthen the capacity of the Coral Triangle countries to adapt and prepare for these imminent challenges.

How is the U.S. Government strengthening climate change adaptation in the Coral Triangle?
The US Government, through the US CTI Support Program, is supporting climate change adaptation measures that need to be implemented in the Coral Triangle. The US CTI Support Program is focusing on the areas and resources under the greatest threat and addressing critical needs at the regional, national and site level through the following activities.

The US CTI Support Program applies an integrated approach across the major CTI thematic areas to achieve catalytic results, focusing activities at specific priority geographic sites and linking them across the region through shared learning networks and regional exchanges to advance regional policies and strengthen capacity throughout the Coral Triangle region.

Regional

• Provides scientific and technical assistance in the development and implementation of a Region-wide Early Action Plan for climate change adaptation.
• Enhances government and non-government climate change adaptation capacity through regional exchanges, institutionalized training courses and US-based training programs.
• Strengthens the capacity of Coral Triangle countries to present a unified stand on climate change policies.
• Develops a comprehensive and integrated toolkit for marine management that includes case studies and training curricula for sustainable fisheries, early action tools for climate change adaptation, and tools and capacity development for effective management of resilient marine protected areas
• Develops a Coral Triangle Atlas—a regional database on the status of coastal ecosystems and assist countries in understanding, qualifying and quantifying climate change impacts.

National

• Assists governments in conducting vulnerability assessments and developing appropriate climate adaptation assessment protocols in each Coral Triangle country.
• Supports the development of local early action plan for climate change that will validate and implement the activities in the regional action plan for climate change adaptation.

Site-Level

• Supports local stakeholders in carrying out climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessments in priority sites.
• Uses priority sites as learning laboratories for local stakeholders to apply climate change adaptation good practices.