This Third National Communication is a comprehensive national report on climate change, covering national circumstances, greenhouse-gas emissions, vulnerability and adaptation, mitigation, climate governance, technology and capacity needs, and financing requirements. The Communication provides an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions addressing four principal sectors: energy, industrial processes, waste, and agriculture, forestry and other land use. The Communication examines eight particularly important sectors, identifying climate risks and offering principal adaptation measures: 1) coastal zone management, in order to tackle flooding, erosion, sea-level rise, through ecosystem-based approaches; 2) water hazard, drought and irregular rainfall, to be deal with increased storage, rainwater harvesting, desalination and integrated water-resource management; 3) extreme rainfall, drought, saltwater intrusion, to be deal with climate-smart agriculture techniques, research, technology transfer and greater technical capacity; 4) climate impacts affecting tourism; 5) ocean warming, coral degradation and changes in fish distribution, whose solutions are: better stock management, modelling, monitoring and regional cooperation; 6) biodiversity threats, habitat changes, increasing invasive species and extinction risks. The proposed solutions focus on: strengthening protected areas, improving ecosystem restoration, species conservation, monitoring and research activity; 7) forest protection measures to tackle heat, drought, pests and ecosystem disturbance, through sustainable forest management, rehabilitation and stronger institutional capacity; 8) threats to human health due to vector- and water-borne diseases. Concerning mitigation measures, this Communication mainly focuses on decarbonisation and reduction of emissions, and concerns the following sectors: expanding renewable electricity; increasing energy efficiency; progressively shifting towards low-carbon transport and electric mobility; improving wastewater treatment and energy and nutrient recovery; waste-to-energy and landfill methane management; forest protection, reforestation and agroforestry; improved agricultural soil, fertiliser and manure management; moving towards responsible, lower-carbon tourism; promotion of climate-smart agriculture, stronger local technical expertise, improving empirical agricultural research, better management of fertilisers and livestock emissions; increasing resilience of food-production systems, in order to strengthen food security. The Communication also focuses on blue economy as a central component of Seychelles' sustainable development model, linking marine spatial planning, fisheries management and conservation, tourism and climate resilience.
Seychelles · 2023-12-01