It didn’t come as a surprise to see President Donald Trump sign executive orders to again pull out of the Paris Agreement, or from the World Health Organisation, but the immediate suspension of US international aid has compounded the impact beyond what was imagined possible.

The slew of executive orders signed within hours of Trump re-entering the White House and others since have caused consternation for Pacific leaders and communities and alarm for those operating in the region.

Since Trump was last in power, US engagement in the Pacific has increased dramatically. We have seen new embassies opened, the return of Peace Corps volunteers, high-level summits in Washington and more.

• READ MORE: Trump 2.0 chaos and destruction — what it means Down Under
• Other Donald Trump reports

All the officials who have been in the region and met with Pacific leaders and thinkers will know that climate change impacts are the name of the game when it comes to security.

It is encapsulated in the Boe Declaration signed by leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum in 2018 as their number one existential threat and has been restated many times since.

Now it is hard to see how US diplomats and administration representatives can expect to have meaningful conversations with their Pacific counterparts, if they have nothing to offer when it comes to the region’s primary security threat.

The “on again, off again” approach to cutting carbon emissions and providing climate finance does not lend itself to convincing sceptical Pacific leaders that the US is a trusted friend here for the long haul.

Pacific response muted
Trump’s climate scepticism is well-known and the withdrawal from Paris had been flagged during the campaign. The response from leaders within the Pacific islands region has been somewhat muted, with a couple of exceptions.

Vanuatu Attorney-General Kiel Loughman called it out as “bad behaviour”. Meanwhile, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape has sharply criticised Trump, “urging” him to reconsider his decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, and plans to rally Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders to stand with him.

It is hard to see how this will have much effect.

The withdrawal from the World Health Organisation – to which the US provides US$500 million or about 15 percent of its annual budget – creates a deep funding gap.

In 2022, the Lowy Pacific aid map recorded that the WHO disbursed US$9.1 million in the Pacific islands across 320 projects. It contributes to important programmes that support health systems in the region.

In addition, the 90-day pause on disbursement of aid funding while investments are reviewed to ensure that they align with the president’s foreign policy is causing confusion and distress in the region.

Perhaps now the time has come to adopt a more transactional approach. While this may not come easily to Pacific diplomats, the reality is that this is how everyone else is acting and it appears to be the geopolitical language of the moment.

Meaningful commitment opportunities
So where the US seeks a security agreement or guarantee, there may be an opportunity to tie it to climate change or other meaningful commitments.

When it comes to the PIF, the intergovernmental body representing 18 states and territories, Trump’s stance may pose a particular problem.

The PIF secretariat is currently undertaking a Review of Regional Architecture. As part of that, dialogue partners including the US are making cases for whether they should be ranked as “Strategic Partners” [Tier 1] or “Sector Development Partners [Tier 2].

It is hard to see how the US can qualify for “strategic partner” status given Trump’s rhetoric and actions in the last week. But if the US does not join that club, it is likely to cede space to China which is also no doubt lobbying to be at the “best friends” table.

With the change in president comes the new Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He was previously known for having called for the US to cut all its aid to Solomon Islands when then Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare announced this country’s switch in diplomatic ties from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China.

It is to be hoped that since then Rubio has learned that this type of megaphone diplomacy is not welcome in this part of the world.

Since taking office, he has made little mention of the Pacific islands region. In a call with New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters they “discussed efforts to enhance security cooperation, address regional challenges, and support for the Pacific Islands.”

It is still early days, a week is a long time in politics and there remain many “unknown unknowns”. What we do know is that what happens in Washington during the next four years will have global impacts, including in the Pacific. The need now for strong Pacific leadership and assertive diplomacy has never been greater.

Dr Tess Newton Cain is a principal consultant at Sustineo P/L and adjunct associate professor at the Griffith Asia Institute. She is a former lecturer at the University of the South Pacific and has more than 25 years of experience working in the Pacific islands region. This article was first published by BenarNews and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Vanuatu Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau says Pacific security is about the security of the Pacific peoples and their way of life as identified by Forum leaders in the Boe Declaration.

Kalsakau said this reaffirmed climate change as the single greatest threat to regional security.

The PM was speaking at the opening of the Pacific Fusion headquarters in Port Vila on Tuesday, alongside Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific climate action reports

He said Vanuatu, with the world’s first climate change refugees with the relocation in 2005 of 100 villagers in Torba Province, “will always consider climate change its top priority”.

He said climate change is real, an existential threat, impinging on the security and stability of all nations.

“We do not have to look too far to see how the increased intensity of climate change-induced tropical cyclones wreak havoc on the daily lives and livelihoods of our people and set us back years in our development,” said Kalsakau.

He said Vanuatu’s Pacific brothers also faced human security challenges caused by the nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands (by the US), Mororoa Atoll (France) and Australia (United Kingdom).

‘Our reefs are dying’
“With the effects of global warming and nuclear testing, our ocean is getting warmer, our reefs are dying and fishes are now very scarce.

“Our children and grandchildren are bound to never experience what we’ve enjoyed in our childhood.

“The maintenance and sustenance of our marine resources must be the top priority of our Pacific leaders.”

Kalsakau said there were other pressing issues such as the Fukushima nuclear waste water discharge and AUKUS.

“I say again that Pacific security is about the security of our Pacific peoples and way of life.

“This is why Vanuatu stood alongside our Pacific brothers and sisters to produce the Rarotonga Treaty. Which brings me to today’s very special occasion.

“The Pacific Fusion Centre is guided by the regional security priorities identified by the Boe Declaration and supports regional decision-making on these shared security priorities,” he said.

The centre, which is funded by Australia and to be run in collaboration with Pacific Forum member states, will aim to provide training and analysis on regional security issues.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

On World Press Freedom Day the world remembers the importance of a free and independent media as the cornerstone of thriving and healthy democracies.

For our developing and developed Pacific nations of the Blue Continent, the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day is also an opportunity to acknowledge the role of journalists whose first rule is to uphold the news creed — to tell the truth without fear or favour, to serve the public interest, to hold power to account.

For our Forum leaders, the primacy and importance of independent reporting and communication of Forum decisions goes back to our beginnings.

One of the key decisions in those early years more than five decades ago was the mandate to communicate, recognising the benefits of sharing information about the leaders meetings and decisions.

I am pleased to note our strong relationship with Pacific media continues to this day.

Across our key regional leader meetings, we actively partner with and brief news journalists to ensure quality reporting of the issues shaping our world. We recognise that editorial independence and quality journalism rely on strong access to facts, information, and certainty.

The watchdog and public interest role of the press as the Fourth Estate complementing the other three — the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary, has never been more important to public accountability, transparency, and good governance.

Together, they ensure engaged, active, and informed Pacific citizens. This level of empowerment sets the basis for a Pacific future that is safe, secure, and peaceful.

From the Biketawa Declaration on Good Governance to the Boe Declaration on Regional Security and the Teieniwa Vision on Anti-Corruption, our leaders are demonstrating their understanding that independent and free media are part of the work we do.

The digital age, amid times of covid and climate crisis, has also brought a new layer of transformative disruption and opportunity.

A free, thriving, and diverse Pacific press is a key partner to our Blue Pacific strategy to 2050. Today we can all celebrate the independence and impact of quality news journalism led by news and media practitioners across the Pacific and globally.

Despite often harsh work conditions, they continue a vocation for a news agenda of truth, transparency, and accountability.

The global rights-based theme of this year’s World Press Freedom Day is a timely recognition that in serving the public interest, the journalist is often the implementing arm of the people’s right to know. Independent truth telling and investigation is not an easy or popular calling.

World Press Freedom Day allows us to reiterate the safety and the rights of journalists, particularly women in journalism.

Without this ability to do their work without fear or favour, we cannot count on the facts that matter, that stand out in a world of fake news, misinformation, and noise.

Today, I join those who pay tribute to all journalists who frame the stories of our times in the values of truth, balance, and our collective right to know. Vinaka vakalevu, thank you.

PIF Secretary-General Henry Puna gave this message for the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day on 3 May 2023. It has been republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

With the Australian general election largely done and dusted, and with a clear (if still-to-be-quantified) mandate, Anthony Albanese faces greater and more immediate international challenges than any Australian Prime Minister since the Cold War began.

Between climate change and an increasingly truculent — not to say belligerent — China, Pacific island countries are searching for reassurance, safety and support. Reassurance that we are valued and respected, and that a rules based order has the same rules for everyone else as it has for us.

Safety, from the increasingly violent buffeting of climate change, and from the risk of losing our balance in the increasingly straitened geopolitical space we occupy. And support for our own self-determination, territorial integrity and survival.

• READ MORE: Other Village Explainer reports at Asia Pacific Report
• Other Australian election reports

Each if these will have significant impacts on the Albanese government’s domestic policies.

Each will have lasting impact on the Pacific islands region.

Let’s hope they’ve got a plan in place. They do not have the luxury of time.

Part of this fight will have to happen while they’re still strapping on the gloves. We’ve already looked at some of the challenges Penny Wong is likely to face when she (almost certainly) becomes Foreign Minister.

In this issue, we’ll enumerate some of the immediate challenges faced by Wong and her cabinet colleagues.

PIF Secretariat in shambles
The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat is in a shambles right now, in no small part because of Australia’s call for a vote during the selection of its most recent Secretary-General, rather than enduring more painstaking but traditional method of consensus-building our leaders learned in the village meeting house.

The voting split the membership, and the Micronesian contingent still have not reconciled themselves completely.

There is little Australia can do to fix that. But they can offer unconditional support to the body itself, and for the idea it embodies. They can formally uphold the Boe Declaration, which lists climate change as the single greatest security threat faced by the Pacific islands region, by re-basing (sorry) their security stance on this premise.

They can fund and support the Blue Pacific strategy. They can fund the Secretariat’s climate indemnity scheme. They can show our reluctant leaders that the PIF is worth being part of.

More importantly, they can promote our voices in Washington and at the UN. Our plight on the world stage resembles the challenges women have faced since… forever. Ignored, subverted, explained to, denied agency over our own body politic. We don’t need people to speak for us. We need people to listen when we speak for ourselves.

Endorsement and sponsorship for voices like those of our esteemed Pacific Elders would go a long way to achieving that.

Even more ambitiously: Is a Pacific COP possible? I’d be pleasantly surprised if this Labor government proved willing to spend the time and effort reaching a landmark such as this.

Immense time, resources needed
The time and resources required would be immense, and would compete with dozens of looming challenges in the foreign relations/defence space.

Despite the massive victory it could bring, the opportunity costs are immense. If a COP were achieved, it would build a legacy that could be relied on for years to come, but as we’ve stated before, all this would have to be achieved with a lethargic, hidebound DFAT bureaucracy.

It’s sadly much easier to imagine Australia lurching from crisis to crisis, as it has for decades.

In terms of bilateral relations, the stakes are even higher. It is clear now that China intends to build on its perceived momentum in the Pacific, and to test Labor’s mettle from the very start.

Wang Yi’s tour of four (or five?) Pacific island nations is only days away. His diplomats have been working hard to replicate the success they achieved with Solomon Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare, who signed an unprecedented security agreement that would allow personnel to be stationed in-country and ships to visit and re-victual.

It doesn’t appear that Wang will get what he wants. The pressure is on in Kiribati, but the government there has paid a hefty political price for its whole-throated support of China.

Since 2020, it’s been feeling much more phlegmatic than it was in the past.

Chinese base in Kiribati a worry
Good thing, too. A Chinese base in Kiribati is one that even I worry about. Having AA/AD capabilities just a hop, skip and a jump from Honolulu would force a fundamental re-evaluation of the US Navy’s Pacific stance.

I’ve pooh-poohed talk of bases in Vanuatu and Solomon Islands in the past. I worry about Kiribati.

Vanuatu, at least, has managed to keep dancing on the head of an increasingly pointy pin. Resisting pressure at the highest level to include an overt security component in Wang Yi’s gift bag, it has instead signed on to a massive upgrade for its Luganville airport, which will allow wide-body aircraft to fly there directly from Asia.

The island of Espiritu Santo has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. An upgrade to its international airport is part of Vanuatu’s 2018 tourism development strategy.

Yes, it’s undeniably true that any airport that can handle an A330 NEO can also handle a C17 or a Xi’an Y-20. But Vanuatu has — for the moment, at least — avoided explicitly allowing any such flights, except possibly for humanitarian reasons.

Vanuatu’s example is illuminating. They appear to have translated a high-stakes geopolitical gambit into an economic development gain that fits the country’s plans, and which will provide a massive economic boost to its moribund tourist industry.

But they are faced with increased stridency from all sides, and if they lose the space to manoeuvre, either through rising geopolitical tensions or because climate change pushes us past the point of resilience, then we will be more at risk ourselves, and more of a risk to our neighbours.

A precarious truth in the Pacific
This precarious truth applies even more so in Solomon Islands, in PNG, in Fiji … in fact everywhere in the region. Security begins with stability and predictability. We need to know we’ll be around in a generation’s time before we make any other promises.

And we need to know that Australia’s promises will be kept this time, rather than sacrificed at the altar of domestic politics, as they have under every Liberal and Labor government since the millennium began.

Can Penny Wong unilaterally undo these all tensions? No. But she can fight for a foreign policy that changes Australia’s trajectory, rather than one that attempts to change ours.

Rather than trying to align us to Australia, she can fight to align Australia to confront our common existential threats, to listen to how we expect to address them, and then to be a proper friend, and act on our words.

The Village Explainer by Dan McGarry is a semi-regular newsletter containing analysis and insight focusing on under-reported aspects of Pacific societies, politics and economics. Republished with permission.

At the time of writing, there are 63 reported cases of COVID-19 in the Pacific.

This includes one in Papua New Guinea, three in Fiji, seven in New Caledonia, 23 in French Polynesia, 29 in Guam and suspected cases in Samoa.

The number is relatively low but there is a sense that tragedy is unfolding in slow motion across a region where health sectors are already under-funded and poorly equipped.

READ MORE: Covid-19 cases in Guam and Fiji on the increase

• NZ in state of emergency and going into lockdown

Official responses to the pandemic have varied across the region. Pacific states are implementing border protection policies including reducing inbound flights, banning cruise ships, restricting officials from travelling overseas and closing traditional border crossings.

New Zealand and Australia, gateways to the islands, have closed their borders.

In addition to the implications for health security in the Pacific, a number of observations can be made about Pacific regionalism and the longer-term consequences of Covid-19 for partnerships and trust.

Pacific states have responded in various ways, from Papua New Guinea elevating Covid-19 from a public health crisis to a national security issue, to Nauru declaring a state of emergency under the National Disaster Risk Management Act 2016.

Jointly funding WHO response
Australia and New Zealand are jointly funding the World Health Organisation’s Pacific response plan at a cost of around US$1 million. But there are differences in how the two countries are publicly responding to Pacific needs.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stated that New Zealand has a duty of care to the Pacific Islands, and has even made updates available in nine Pacific languages.

Meanwhile, the Australian government has come under fire for being missing in action and not providing public information about how Australia is protecting the region.

The Covid-19 pandemic demands a regional response, but one has not been forthcoming.

In a speech at the Global Focus Summit in Wellington in February, Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi identified a series of choices that Pacific countries face in addressing global challenges, from climate change to geopolitical competition.

Tuilaepa stated that Pacific countries will choose to address these challenges as a collective, in sub-regional groups, as individual countries or by embracing specific partnerships. He concluded that “it is the state of regionalism and interpretation that will shape national outcomes, experiences and wellbeing”.

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) has been quiet on Covid-19, raising the question of what role it could — or should — play in formulating a collective response. The 2018 Boe Declaration on Regional Security affirmed an expanded concept of security inclusive of human security to protect the rights, health and prosperity of Pacific people.

‘Ensure health lives’
The 2019 Boe Declaration Action Plan seeks alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3) to “ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing”. But the Action Plan focusses exclusively on non-communicable diseases with no reference to communicable diseases, while SDG3 refers to both.

This is an odd oversight. The Boe Declaration states that climate change is an existential threat to Pacific peoples, yet climate-sensitive health risks, including infectious diseases, are not mentioned.

A collective response would fundamentally be about national-level responses and regional leadership. Linking Covid-19 to the Boe Declaration’s focus on human security would mandate the PIF to lead a coordinated regional response to monitor public health emergency preparedness and identify capacity needs and gaps within member states.

The PIF could also coordinate cooperation and technical support with partner countries and agencies, specifically the Pacific Community (SPC), the principal scientific and technical organisation in the Pacific region, whose mandate includes public health surveillance.

If the PIF does not step up in the face of Covid-19, it reveals a severe omission in forecasting and responding to regional health security threats.

A collective response is also about exercising leadership at a time when resilience is fundamentally important. Herein lies one of the strengths of the Pacific.

The Blue Pacific identity is the core driver of collective action to advance the 2014 Framework for Pacific Regionalism, which calls for “a region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion and prosperity, so that all Pacific people can lead free, healthy and productive lives”.

Collective response needed
The challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic presents to the Pacific are best met with a collective response and regional leadership.

It has also been suggested that COVID-19 demands a regional disaster response such as enacting the FRANZ Arrangement between France, Australia and New Zealand, which allows for the coordination of humanitarian relief assistance in the Pacific.

As Dan McGarry notes, this will take significant organisation. Although much activity is taking place to strengthen security sectors across the Pacific, such as Australia’s “Pacific step-up” and New Zealand’s “Pacific Reset”, there are some obvious missed opportunities.

In 2016, we argued that to enhance regional security architecture, the FRANZ Arrangement and the Quadrilateral Defence Coordinating Group between Australia, New Zealand, France and the United States should be expanded to include key Pacific Island actors.

This recommendation has since been advocated by Joanne Wallis in her submission to the Australian Parliament’s 2020 inquiry into Australia’s defence relationships with Pacific island nations. But given that Pacific partners — particularly Australia and the United States — tend to emphasise traditional security approaches, there are concerns about the securitisation of human security such as health.

These are unprecedented times, but there is an opportunity for the PIF to lead a collective response. This will demand more resources, expertise and capital.

This is also an opportunity for Pacific partners to demonstrate their commitment to engaging with the region, even in times when the temptation is to pull up the drawbridge.

Dr Anna Powles is a senior lecturer of security studies at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Massey University, Wellington. Dr Jose Sousa-Santos is a senior associate (Pacific regional security) at Victoria University’s Centre for Lifelong Learning and a Research Scholar at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University. This article is republished from East Asia Forum with the authors’ permission.

Pacific diplomats, academics and youth leaders will gather in Auckland, New Zealand, this week to discuss security, economic development and other pressing issues shaping the region’s future.

Pacific Futures will be held on October 18 and will feature speakers from across the region, including Samoa’s Deputy Prime Minister Afioga Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, New Zealand Minister of Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio and New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, who will be giving the keynote speech.

New Zealand Institute of International Affairs executive director Melanie Thornton said the conference would be “focussed squarely on the Pacific” with more than 80 percent of speakers from the Pacific or of Pacific heritage.

READ MORE: Tagata Pasifika: Youth lead indigenous storytelling at Moana Loloto

“This conference will be vital for understanding the new dynamics in the Pacific and what these mean for the diplomatic community, the business community, and for Pasifika and New Zealand communities everywhere,” she said.

The public is also invited to attend the conference to gain an understanding of regional challenges and the positive work that is taking place in difference Pacific countries and organisations, she said.

Pacific security will likely be at the forefront of the conference, which will take place as China galvanises support and increases its foothold in the region.

Last month, both Kiribati and the Solomon Islands switched diplomatic ties from long-time ally Taiwan to China, prompting claims that the world’s second largest economy was attempting to “buy” diplomacy in the Pacific.

However, senior lecturer of security studies at Massey University Dr Anna Powles, who will be presenting at the conference, said talks on China’s role in the Pacific would not dominate the agenda as it had done in other regional meetings in recent years.

“The conference has deliberately shifted the framing of geopolitics in the Pacific in terms of what are Pacific perspectives on security issues.”

While she said the Kiribati and Solomon’s islands developments were likely to come up, she expected a far more “nuanced conservation” where the bilateral agency of Pacific nations are acknowledged.

Another key issue which is certain to be raised is the unrest in West Papua, which has seen over 30 people killed and many thousands displaced as the Indonesia military clashed with protesters.

Dr Powles said it was important that West Papua is discussed at the conference as it is very much a regional security issue.

“What is happening in Papua is a human security issue and because it is a human security issue, it is a regional security issue for New Zealand and a number of Pacific island countries.”

“New Zealand is a signatory to the Boe Declaration which provides an expanded concept of security inclusive of human security.”

“There is a potential role for New Zealand, similar to the honest broker role New Zealand played in respect to brokering peace in Bougainville, where New Zealand can offer ‘good offices’ to support dialogue between the key actors in Papua and Indonesia.”

Vanuatu Foreign Minister’s Minister Ralph Regenvanu who will also be speaking at the conference told Pacific Media Watch he intended to raise the West Papua issue personally.

An outspoken advocate of West Papuan independence, Regenvanu commended the New Zealand government’s leadership on issues like climate change, which was robustly debated at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu in August.

“New Zealand is a model for what a developed country should be committing in terms of climate change,” he said.

Pacific Futures will also focus heavily on the growing influence of young people in Pacific developments with many representatives of youth organisations speaking.

Founder and CEO of Tonga Youth Leaders and Pacific Regional Representative for Commonwealth Youth Council Elizabeth V Kite said the conference will give a much-needed voice to the younger generations which are frequently excluded from decision making.

“Youth are leading the way in terms of highlighting issues such as climate change, but we are still not afforded equal say at decision making tables about our environment and future, which must change,” she said.

“If we are the ones to live out the future that is being planned today, we as young people must have a say in that and must be engaged with when these discussions and decisions are being made.”

Pacific Futures will take place at the Novotel Auckland Airport from 8am to 5pm on Friday October 18.

The content of the Boe Declaration, signed at the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru earlier this month, is not widely known. However, a statement from NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern suggests that it declares climate change as a security issue.

“The Boe Declaration acknowledges additional collective actions are required to address new and non-traditional challenges. Modern-day regional security challenges include climate change,” she said in a statement.

Both the leaders communique and the declaration itself affirm the fact that climate change is a real issue. However, it is discussion of gender in light of that is lacking.

READ MORE: Nauru 2018 and the new Boe on the block

According to a report by Oxfam, men survived women 3 to 1 in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) suggests that this was because women were trapped in their homes at the time of the disaster “while men were out in the open”.

The agency also suggest that a cultural or religious custom can restrict a woman’s ability to survive a natural disaster.

“. . . the clothes they wear and/or their responsibilities in caring for children could hamper their mobility in times of emergency,” a UNDP report says.

Caregivers and providers
Figures from the United Nations show that 80 percent of those displaced by climate change were women. This, they argue, is caused primarily by their roles as caregivers and providers of food.

London School of Economics research indicates that women and girls are definitively more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than their male counterparts.

In societies where women are considered to be lower on the metaphorical food chain, “natural disasters will kill . . . more women than men,” the report says.

The two researchers could find no biological reason why women would be at more risk than men.

Based on this research, and other research like it, many public figures have called for attention to be paid to the issue.

“More extreme weather events. . . will all result in less food. Less food will mean that women and children get less,” dystopian author Margaret Atwood told a London conference in June.

The author of books like The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake said that climate change “. . . will also mean social unrest, which can lead to wars and civil wars . . . Women do badly in wars”.

Primarily burdened
When asked about the issue at an event at Georgetown University in February, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that “. . . women. . . will be . . . primarily burdened with the problems of climate change”.

Earlier this month, former NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark told a crowd of about 200 people at the National Council of Women (NCW) conference that the world was close to missing the opportunity to tend to the issue of climate change and women were most likely to be affected by it.

“Everything we know tells us that women are the most vulnerable in this,” she said. “If you look at the natural disasters caused by weather. . . more women die”.

According to Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, President of the Marshall Islands, women are more affected by climate change than their male counterparts but are also “less likely to be empowered to cope”.

“Women aren’t making enough of the decisions, and the decisions aren’t yet doing enough for women,” she wrote in The Guardian.

The UNDP argues it is because of a woman’s place in the household that she is in prime position to affect change when it comes to this issue.

“. . . knowledge and capabilities [regarding reproduction, household and community roles] can and should be deployed for/in climate change mitigation, disaster relief and adaptation strategies,” the report says..

Feminist solution
“A feminist solution” is what former Irish President and UN Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson argued for in June.

She explained that “feminism doesn’t mean excluding men, it’s about being more inclusive of women and – in this case – acknowledging the role they can play in tackling climate change”.

She’s not the only, nor the first, to make such a suggestion.

A whole feminist environmental movement, known as ecofeminism, has sprung up over the decades since the 1970s.

At its most basic level, ecofeminism is exactly what it sounds like: It argues that there is a relationship between environmental damage – such as that done by climate change – and the oppression of women and their rights.

For example, in her 2014 book This Changes Everything, journalist Naomi Klein argues that it is hypocritical that the self-same lawmakers who claim to be “pro-life” are also the ones who push for whole industries surrounding drilling, fracking and mining to not only survive but thrive.

Business confidence
“If the Earth is indeed our mother, then far from the bountiful goddess of mythology, she is a mother facing many great fertility challenges,” she writes.

In New Zealand, leader of the opposition National Party Simon Bridges, who is opposed to the idea of removing abortion from the Crimes Act, is also vehemently opposed to the idea of stopping oil and gas exploration in the Taranaki region.

His concern is that “It will have an effect on business confidence,” he said back in April.

The truth of climate change, as with most global issues, is that there can be no one-size fits all solution.

For some, like Helen Clark, it requires long-term mass movements. For others, it requires being invited to the conversation.

Time will tell as to which one wins out.

• Pacific leaders endorse new security deal
• NZ must help Solomon Islands tackle unemployment ‘time bomb’, says Clark
• The ‘unscrubbed’ version of the new Boe Agreement on Pacific security

Australia’s new Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne probably envied New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s welcome at this week’s Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Nauru this week.

During the leaders’ retreat lunch break on Wednesday, Nauru President Baron Waqa joined a group of local elders to serenade Ardern with a song titled “Aotearoa our friend, Jacinda new star in the sky’”.

Payne was never going to be described in such warm terms. After just over a week in the job, she had to convince Pacific leaders that Australia remained committed to being the region’s “principal security partner” when the new prime minister, Scott Morrison, had chosen not to attend.

READ MORE: Australia to improve Pacific access to security information

Morrison’s absence, and his non-appearance at the April 2018 Forum Economic Ministers’ meeting, suggest that Australia’s continued claims about prioritising the region might be more hyperbole than fact.

The PM’s failure to attend this week’s gathering also undermines Australia’s claimed recognition of the importance of building people-to-people links.

Although Payne is the person in Cabinet most likely to continue Julie Bishop’s positive approach to the region as foreign minister, she was hamstrung at the meeting by Australia’s hypocritical policies.

The centrepiece of Wednesday’s leaders’ meeting was the signing of the Boe Declaration, designed to update the 2000 Biketawa Declaration on regional security.

The Boe Declaration articulates an “expanded concept of security inclusive of human security, humanitarian assistance, prioritising environmental security, and regional cooperation in building resilience to disasters and climate change”. It’s a sad irony that this commitment to “human security” was signed only kilometres from Australia’s offshore processing centre where the human rights of refugees are regularly violated.

This expanded concept of security also highlights the different priorities of Australia and its Pacific Island neighbours. Australia is focused on strategic concerns, particularly the increasingly crowded and complex geopolitics of the region, which has negative effects in the Pacific islands.

Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi warned in a speech in Sydney last week that the region is “seeing invasion and interest in the form of strategic manipulation”.

“The big powers,” he declared, “are doggedly pursuing strategies to widen and extend their reach and inculcating a far-reaching sense of insecurity.”

The biggest challenge facing Payne was the reality of Australia’s climate change policies. The Boe Declaration identifies climate change as “the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific” and reaffirms forum members’ “commitment to progress the implementation of the Paris Agreement”.

Payne faced a tough job convincing Pacific leaders that Australia is genuinely committed to meaningful action on climate change when her prime minister is a known advocate for coal-fired power and the government refuses to adopt an explicit strategy to meet its Paris Agreement targets.

There is scope for Australia to improve its relationships in the region. For example, the Boe Declaration reaffirms forum members’ commitment to the idea of the “Blue Pacific”, which is intended to highlight the “collective potential of our shared stewardship of the Pacific Ocean”.

Australia already does valuable and valued work to help Pacific island states protect their ocean territories through its Pacific Maritime Security Programme, under which it provides patrol boats and personnel to regional states. It’s now looking to bolster that with expanded aerial surveillance, with a particular focus on fisheries and, increasingly, undersea natural resource management.

The wider understanding of security outlined in the declaration also specifies “humanitarian assistance” as a priority. Australia is already the primary provider of humanitarian and disaster relief (alongside New Zealand), which it can continue and expand.

The declaration identifies “transnational crime” as another priority, an area in which Australia provides significant support and which is likely to be enhanced when the proposed Australia Pacific Security College is established to train security and law enforcement officials.

The declaration specifically mentions the need to “improve coordination among existing security mechanisms”, which is likely to be assisted by Australia’s proposed Pacific Fusion Centre to connect regional security agencies.

And the declaration highlights the need to promote the “prosperity of Pacific people”, to which Payne’s signing this week in Nauru of agreements with Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to join the Pacific Labour Scheme (Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu are already members) will hopefully make a contribution.

However, this week’s forum leaders’ meeting again highlighted the counterproductive nature of Australia’s approach to the Pacific islands.

Bishop worked hard to build bridges with the region when she was foreign minister, and was instrumental in formulating Australia’s policy of “stepping up” its engagement with the Pacific islands, but those positive developments are undermined by Australia’s declared policy positions.

While it’s unlikely that Payne (or any Australian leader) will be serenaded by Pacific leaders soon, Australia at least needs to be singing from the same song sheet as the region, particularly when it comes to climate change.

Dr Joanne Wallis is a senior lecturer at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University and the author of Pacific Power? Australia’s Strategy in the Pacific Islands.

By RNZ Pacific

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is describing the newly signed Boe Declaration as the most significant statement on regional security by Pacific leaders in a generation.

“All Pacific leaders recognise the security issues we face in our region are ever-changing. The Pacific is also becoming increasingly complex and crowded,” Ardern said.

Ardern arrives back in New Zealand today after a one-day trip to Nauru for the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ retreat.

She said the security declaration addresses new challenges for the region, including cybercrime and transnational crime.

“The prosperity of New Zealand is intrinsically linked to the security of our region, which is why this declaration is so important,” Ardern said.

Climate change emphasis
The declaration also places emphasis on climate change.

“That is a new addition to the Boe Declaration. It hasn’t been present in security declarations before. But there is recognition from the members of this forum that if you are talking about threats to security climate change presents one of the most significant,” said Jacinda Ardern.

However, Pacific Media Watch reports that there was no significant response to Vanuatu’s call for the Forum to support its plan to submit the West Papua decolonisation issue to the United Nations next year.

The final communique “recognised the constructive engagement by Forum countries with Indonesia with respect to elections and human rights” and called for further dialogue.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.