By Nic Maclellan
As delegates gathered in Nuku’alofa for the annual Pacific Islands Forum, the new Indoor Stadium at Tonga High School resonated with song from hundreds of school students, at Monday’s official opening.
Soon after the ceremony, the building shook with the impact of a 6.9 magnitude earthquake.
For a nation recovering from the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption and tsunami, it was yet another reminder of both the vulnerability and the resilience of people around the region, with delegates observing that the opening theme of resilience was echoed in reality.
In his address to the opening ceremony, Tongan Prime Minister Huʿakavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni highlighted the challenges facing a new generation of Pacific youth: “We must ensure resilience against natural disasters and climate change. We must identify our advocacy and action on climate change and sea level rise. We must reach consensus on our vision for a region of peace and security.”
As host of the summit, Sovaleni highlighted the 53rd Forum theme “Transformative Resilient Pasifiki”, and stressed the importance of health and education as the basis for regional development.
In the absence overseas of King Tupou VI, Crown Prince Tupoutoʿa ʿUlukalala, Crown Princess Sinaitakala and Princess Angelika Lātūfuipeka Tukuʿaho welcomed the Forum leaders and international delegations to the Kingdom.
The Crown Prince evoked the Kingdom’s long involvement in the Forum, noting the first ever head of the secretariat was a Tongan (from November 1972, Mahe ʿUliʿuli Tupouniua was the inaugural director of the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation, the precursor to today’s Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat).
Decades on, Baron Waqa, a former President of Nauru, has taken the helm as Secretary General of the Forum Secretariat in Suva. “We are at the centre of strategic geopolitical interests,” Waqa said.
“We are at the forefront of the battle against climate change and its impacts. We continue to manage an evolving economic development landscape. It requires us as the Pacific Islands Forum to be decisive in the direction, priorities and actions we will take in the interest of our region and our people.”
Evoking the importance of the Forum’s 2050 Strategy for a Blue Pacific Continent, adopted in Suva in 2022, Waqa stressed that “climate change and resilience are the primary issues for our region today. To reaffirm the words of our incoming Forum Chair, ‘the time for talking is now over – we need to see action’.”
This week’s summit in Nuku’alofa is attended by numerous international delegations, including United Nations Secretary General António Guterres – described by the Tongan Prime Minister as “a cherished ally and true champion of Small Island Developing States.”
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Guterres said: “We meet at a turbulent time for our world: raging conflicts; an escalating climate crisis; inequalities and injustices everywhere and the 2030 Agenda is faltering. But this region is a beacon of solidarity and strength, environmental stewardship and peace. The world has much to learn from the Pacific and the world must also step up to support your initiatives.”
“The young people of the Pacific have taken the climate crisis all the way to the International Court of Justice,” Guterres said. “You have also rightly recognised that this is a security crisis – and taken steps to manage those risks together. I want to express my full support to the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, and I will do my best to help mobilise international resources for the Pacific Resilience Facility and to engage with all the relevant initiatives the Pacific Island Forum.”
In 2026, the Australian government led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hopes to host the 31st Conference of the Parties under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
For the outgoing Forum Chair, Prime Minister of Cook Islands Mark Brown, COP31 is an opportunity for island states, but also a challenge for the largest Forum member. “
To have a COP in the Pacific region is an opportunity to highlight the voices of the Pacific,” Brown told Islands Business. “But I think it then puts the spotlight and the pressure on countries like Australia, the U.S and others who are active in the Pacific region. We must put the pressure on them to come up with some valuable commitments towards addressing issues that Pacific countries have on climate resilience and climate financing.”
The UN Secretary General issued a challenge to OECD countries and industrialised states responsible for the rise is carbon emissions: “The G20 – the biggest emitters responsible for 80 per cent of those emissions – must step up and lead, by phasing out the production and consumption of fossil fuels and stopping their expansion immediately.”
“When governments sign new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future,” Guterres said. “The Pacific Island states’ ambition for a fossil-fuel-free Pacific is a blueprint for the G20 and for the world.”
The UN Secretary General encouraged Forum members to participate in next month’s global Summit of the Future in New York, to advance the development and climate agenda on the international stage.
The issues of self-determination, decolonisation and relationships with colonial powers will be on the agenda this week, with New Caledonia wracked by crisis, and American Samoa and Guam seeking to upgrade their relationship with the Forum to associate membership.
A Forum monitoring mission of three Prime Ministers had planned to travel to New Caledonia last week, to contribute to dialogue after months of protests and clashes in the French Pacific colony. The mission however, has been postponed until after this week’s summit, with the Government of New Caledonia angered by French attempts to drive the program and activities of the mission.
In his address, Sovaleni noted that “we must honour the vision of our forefathers in regards to self-determination in New Caledonia.”
The first day of the Forum also included meetings of the three sub-regions of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia, as the region’s Presidents, Premiers and Prime Ministers prepare for Thursday’s leaders retreat in Vava’u, the northern most group of islands in the Tongan archipelago.
