Typhoon Pam Strikes Vanuatu.

Roughly 18 hours ago the most serious category five Typhoon Pam struck Vanuatu which is actually a group of 82 small islands approximately 2000km (1200 miles) north-west of Brisbane, Australia. Although smaller then the off-the-scale Typhoon Haiyan which struck the Philippines at the end of 2013 Typhoon Pam has created a similar situation of almost total destruction that has completely cut off many communities that were already isolated.

If there is an up side to this situation it is that Vanuatu's total population is only around 270,000 people. The city I live in - London - has roughly 40 times as many people as the entire nation of Vanuatu. So although this is a serious situation it shouldn't be beyond the capacity of international relief organisations. They will though require money and logistical support in the form of helicopters and engineers to get air-fields and other vital infrastructure up and running as quickly as possible.

Within climate change negotiations Vanuatu is actually considered quite an important nation. In fact I used at 2014's COP20 Summit as an example of how these small nations simply cannot compete with larger nations such as the US in terms of scientific, political, legal and other technological knowhow. It is also a nation that is particularly at risk from the effects of climate change having already been forced to permanently evacuate its coastal areas in response to rising sea levels.

Therefore if there is any meaning to this disaster striking Vanuatu then it is to provide a prime example of why parties involved in climate change negotiations - myself included - really need to pick up the pace in terms to streamlining the ADP negotiating text so that it can be signed up to at COP21 at the end of this year. It particularly highlights the issue of financing for adaptation and loss and damage that has been a laborious sticking point.

Although national governments such as the UK and New Zealand have already pledged aid to Vanuatu as always happens in these situations I think the majority of aid money is going to come through private donations to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO's). Within climate change negotiations there is a bloc of nations - often Marxist ones - that are demanding that all funding comes on a government-to-government basis with no allowance being provided for private finance.

Typhoon Pam is likely to provide a clear example of all the extra forms of assistance that less capable nations are denying themselves by digging in their heels and refusing to allow for private finance within any ADP agreement.

Also Typhoon Pam coincides with a once a decade United Nations (UN) Summit of disaster relief which is currently taking place in Japan. One suggestion to come out of climate change negotiations is that the UN sets up a relief agency specifically to deal with natural disasters triggered by climate change. Typhoon Pam really highlights the problem with that because although Vanuatu is experiencing problems associated with climate change no-one is really in a position to say for certain that this specific typhoon is a climate change related disaster.

Obviously it is quite hard to argue that as the World rushes to respond to Typhoon Pam the situation would be improved by a lengthy argument over whether the responsibility should fall on the proposed UN climate change relief agency or not.

For example due to its proximity it is likely that a lot of the responsibility to the Typhoon Pam response is going to fall on Australia. The current Australian government has a reputation for being quite prickly on climate change issues so could possibly be less keen to participate in an operation that helps demonstrate the flaws in its environmental policy.

17:00 on 14/3/15 (UK date).