Pacific representatives have called for urgent reform to climate finance and regional cooperation at a high-level panel on climate security on day one of the 2025 Pacific Regional and National Security Conference being held in Suva, Fiji from 14-16 July.
The panel featured Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance and National Planning, Hon. Professor Biman Prasad; Tuvalu’s Minister for Climate Change and Environment, Hon. Dr Maina Talia; Cook Islands Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hon. Tingika Elikana; and Tonga’s Minister for Police, Hon. Paula Piveni Piukala.
Minister Prasad warned Pacific countries have a very narrow window to adapt to climate change, adding that the world was “failing the Pacific states on climate finance."
“If we do not take action now, the stability, security, and development gains we’ve made overthe last 50 years could all be lost,” he said.
“We need a massive increase in climate finance flowing to the Pacific over this decade. We need to get on with mobilising funds at speed, and with scale. Because we only know too well that for many communities and many regions across the Pacific, adaptation windows have already closed. It's too late for some of them.”
Minister Prasad also called for deeper regional integration, a Pacific Development Bank, and greater mobility frameworks: “It’s time we look very, very seriously at deeper and meaningful regional integration … for the free movement of our people and shared prosperity.”
Tonga
Minister Piukala criticised global inaction and highlighted the Pacific’s low contribution to carbon emissions.
“If we add our region together, it’s not even close to one per cent contribution to carbon emissions, yet we are forced to change our lifestyle, change our policy,” he said.
“We in the Pacific all experience the impact of climate change, but we have nothing to do with the climate change. Absolutely nothing. We are an innocent victim of this disaster.”
He also questioned the effectiveness of global climate investment, including the six trillion dollars invested in renewable energy over the past four years, yet 2024 was the hottest year on record. “What is the correlation of our solutions to our problem? It seems that there is no correlation. What we are doing basically does not solve the problem that we are facing.”
Tuvalu
Minister Talia said the accessibility of climate finance was a big issue for Tuvalu and low-lying atolls.
“There is no point talking about adaptation without real finance. It’s about time we should have the courage to say no, take your money, too many strings attached,” he said.
On the subject of regional migration, which he acknowledged was a “hot topic” for Tuvalu, Minister Talia said it was a choice for the people.
“The role of the government is to facilitate a pathway that is safe for our people, because we don't want to end up a second-class citizen in another country,” he said.
Cook Islands
Minister Elikana, of the Cook Islands, emphasised the need for unity and cooperation to tackle climate change, which he stressed was not just a security issue.
“Our collective and united voice will carry more weight than our individual fragmented voices,” he said.
“It's time for us to come together as a unified voice in advancing the issue of climate change and our responses to it. But not only within ourself. The same standards should also be with our development partners who wish to engage with us in finding solutions. There shouldn't be any compromise in what we want.”
“We all understand the impact of climate change. In fact, it shouldn't be a security issue now. It should be our very own existence that we should be worried about if we delay taking the appropriate actions.”
The panelists also discussed the upcoming release of International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on climate change and state responsibility, which is due on 23 July.
Minister Talia said the ICJ case had set the tone of the region's work in the future. “We are not just anticipating the outcome, we are doing as much as possible to address the issue of security. Since climate change falls disproportionately, we have to come collectively with different approaches in order for us to address the climate crisis.”
The panel concluded with a shared commitment to “Pacific-led, Pacific-owned” approaches and the need to translate values of the Ocean of Peace proposal into real security and stability for the region.
Moderator Dr Manumatavai Tupou-Roosen, Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Regional Campuses and Global Engagement) at the University of the South Pacific, closed the session with a call for continued collective resolve.
“We are still here. We are still working together. And we are still navigating our vaka forward,” she said.
The conference will conclude tomorrow, 16 July.
Pacific Regional and National Security Conference
The Pacific Regional National Security Conference is a major gathering of security experts from across the Pacific Islands. It is hosted by 11 organizations and focuses on key security issues like climate change, human security, crime, and cybercrime, as outlined in the Boe Declaration on Regional Security.
