Climate risk country profile: Micronesia

This profile is intended to serve as a public good to facilitate upstream country diagnostics, policy dialogue, and strategic planning by providing comprehensive overviews of trends and projected changes in key climate parameters, sector-specific implications, relevant policies and programs, adaptation priorities and opportunities for further actions. The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) is a widely dispersed archipelago located in the western part of the North Pacific Ocean. Due to its location in the western area of the Pacific and the strong influence of the northeast trade winds (which generally prevail December through April), the Federated States of Micronesia experiences a tropical climate. FSM adopted its Climate Change Act in 2013 which outlined the importance of integrating climate change into all development activities. FSM submitted its Second National Communication to the UNFCCC in 2015 and its Nationally Determined Contributions in 2016 and ratified the Paris Agreement in 2016. Climate change poses significant threats for FSM development especially from accelerated sea-level rise, with its immediate coastal areas the most heavily-developed and little scope to move in-land.

This profile features key messages regarding the climate risk faced by FSM, including: 

• The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) have experienced warming of around 0.7°C between 1980 and 2017.
• Potential threats to human well-being and natural ecosystems include increased prevalence of natural hazards such as extreme heat, intensified cyclones and extreme rainfall.
• FSM’s population already lives in a volatile environment, to which it has adapted, but climate change is likely to increase its variability, pose new threats, and place stress on livelihoods.
• Research is urgently needed to better understand issues of migration and displacement across FSM’s islands, and to understand the potentially unequal and dual impacts of climate change and development on poorer communities.