Effects of global warming pose threats to Pacific island region

By Delphine Allaire

During the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders' Summit in Tonga which ran from 23-30 August 2024, the UN Secretary General once again called on the international community to address the plight of small island states, which are already vulnerable and yet the first to be threatened by rising sea levels and warmer waters. UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, preceded the Pope in travelling to Oceania when he went to Tonga for the Summit. Pope Francis will travel to Oceania from 6-9 September when he visits Papua New Guinea, a member of the 18 states making up the Pacific Islands Forum. The Pope will also travel to Singapore on 11 September for an official visit with one of the themes focusing on environmental protection. This is an important issue for urban planning and sustainability in the Southeast Asian city-state, which will welcome the Pope from 11 to 13 September.

Vulnerable island nations

In addition to this calendar convergence, the Holy See and the United Nations have long shared a concern about the vulnerability of the islands of the blue continent. At multilateral level, the two institutions are advocating the cancellation of debt owed by these countries, as well as increased participation by rich countries in the financing of ‘climate funds’ to compensate the Pacific States and help them adapt. In some cases, development aid has been replaced by aid for adaptation to climate change.

These measures are welcomed by Tamatoa Bambridge, an observer of Pacific island life and Director of Research at the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research), based at the Centre for Island Studies and Environmental Observatories (Criobe) in Moorea, French Polynesia: "All these solutions are cumulative. None of them excludes the others. On the contrary, we need to combine several types of funding."

These medium- and long-term investments have the disadvantage of not being immediately noticed by the local populations. Yet the future is worrying for these inhabitants scattered across 35 million square kilometres of ocean. The natural resources of the Pacific's turquoise lagoons are under threat from warming water, "a long-term trend that has been exacerbated by the impact of human activity," and from distant swells linked to cyclones. 

The climatic phenomenon is becoming more and more frequent, leading some islands to lose land and others to gain it, observes Tamatoa Bambridge. The Pacific islands are particularly vulnerable: the average altitude is one to two metres above sea level, around 90% of the population lives less than five kilometres from the coast, and half of all infrastructure is less than 500 metres from the sea.

Climate change adaptation

Climate change adaptation is key to the response in these places. "Without it, heavy rainfall or major droughts, any extreme event will lead to an increase in communicable or non-communicable diseases, a reduction in food reserves, or at the very least the ability to grow food or extract it from the ocean," predicts the Polynesian researcher.

The islands' climate resilience is still inadequate due to a lack of funds, and relies on centuries-old wisdom. "We have traditional knowledge of how to read the weather and the sky, and how to anticipate changes in the weather," says Tamatoa Bambridge, warning against short-term solutions such as dam projects. Their construction is intended to compensate for rising sea levels, but they are causing a dangerous desilting of the coastline. "We are not necessarily trying to ensure that everyone can live three metres above sea level. But we are building town halls to cyclonic standards, to standards for distant swells, so that at least the entire population can take refuge there in the event of extreme events," says Tamatoa Bambridge.

Oceans linked together

During his visit to Papua New Guinea, a country suffering following a deadly landslide in which 2,000 people were buried last May, the Pope is expected to speak more broadly to the whole of the South Pacific about the safeguarding of Creation. "The Earth has a fever" and is "sick," the Pope says in his prayer intention for September, published on 30 August on the eve of the trip and devoted entirely to the victims of environmental disasters.

The ocean, a blue expanse that has no political or cultural borders says Pope Francis, has a special place in this protection. "One element common to the traditional societies of the Amazon, South Asia, and Oceania is that there is no distinction between nature and culture. Nature expresses itself through culture and, conversely, culture is part of nature," points out Tamatoa Bambridge, also noting that Austronesian languages have precisely “no word” for nature. In these Melanesian, Polynesian and Micronesian worlds of the South Pacific, the approach to the environment is totally holistic and genealogical, intrinsically linking land and sea to human societies. 

"The Oceanians have been mastering the oceans for the past 3,000 years, at a time when they were using their own measuring instruments, such as navigation by the stars. The ocean is seen as a unifying element, linking continents rather than separating them," stresses the Moorea-based researcher, certain that this cultural dimension of the ocean that brings people together has a role to play on an international scale. Like the Mediterranean, the Pacific is one of those prophetic places where the future of humanity is at stake.