Facing physical and ecological threats, Pacific Island experts are demanding their experience, and history is better understood to inform local and global climate action.
Releasing a research report by 100 scholars, Professor Steven Ratuva said “Pacific ways of knowing and doing” could cut through the politics and economics that usually prevailed at climate negotiations.
“We’re not going anywhere, we’re staying right here,” Prof Ratuva said, rejecting past theories about “islands of despair”.
The Voices of the Pacific: Climate Crisis, Adaptation and Resilience report by the largest group of Pacific experts ever assembled explains their diverse responses to climate change are grounded in deep connections to land, ocean and environmental stewardship.
One of 100 authors and manager of the research project, Hilda Sakiti-Waqa, said the report would allow a “louder voice” from the Pacific community on a global stage.
“The Pacific has been living with its practices and knowledge over the years and has developed resilience to climate change,” Dr Sakiti-Waqa said.
But the involvement of the resource owners and communities, as well as local businesses, would be vital, she said.
The Suva Declaration in 2015 called for limiting global warming to 1.5C and financing for loss and damage to be separate from funding for climate adaptation.
With climate change threatening lives and livelihoods, limiting global warming to “1.5 to stay alive” as set down in the landmark Paris Agreement is not negotiable for Pacific Island countries as the two-week COP29 climate conference begins in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The report said Pacific climate frameworks should maintain “a sense of autonomy and not used as Trojan horse by external institutions and powers” as China flexes its muscles across the region.
Unlike the “fly in and fly out” approach to disaster response, the report calls for climate finance to be focused on the survival and well-being of Pacific communities.
Speaking from Baku, Prof Ratuva said very little climate finance was reaching the people on the ground who faced the daily impact of climate change.
“Rather than increasing the size of the cake, let’s look at the recipe … What may start as a humanitarian assistance ends up loading the people in the global south with more debt,” he said.
Prof Ratuva said aid from Australia and New Zealand was largely through contractors, with 80 to 90 per cent of the money remaining in those two countries because that’s where the contractors were from.
“Australia itself has been a champion of that for decades – that’s why they call it boomerang aid,” Prof Ratuva said.
“The fear is that most of the climate finance will end up in the same way,” he said.
Of more than 1700 islands in the Pacific, most are in the ocean’s southwest, with less than 10sq km in land area and vast, potentially shrinking economic zones of climate extremes for tuna fisheries, seagrass and giant clams.
Based on elevation, almost half (45 per cent) of the islands are lower than 30m, with 27 per cent less than 5m.
