For more than a decade, the world has been trying to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

That’s no longer possible, according to a new United Nations report. We will likely pass 1.5°C in 2030. That’s not good news for anyone, least of all Australia and New Zealand’s Pacific Island neighbours who face rapidly rising seas.

In response to the report, Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr said:

It is hard to overstate the depth of emotion for those of us living on the frontline after having fought so hard to put the 1.5 degree limit at the heart of the Paris Agreement […] calls for greater ambition are no longer enough — we need to see an urgent and unprecedented increase in political will and investment in a climate safe future

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The small silver lining is that it’s still possible for this to be a temporary overshoot of the target. If nations redouble their efforts to phase out fossil fuels and reduce other sources of emissions, they could limit peak warming to 1.8°C and then use carbon removal methods to bring temperatures back to 1.5°C or below this century.

In 2026, the world is already about 1.4°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, and the damage and death toll from climate-boosted disasters is ramping up.

The United Kingdom is warning of possible food shortages amid a historic drought. Wildfires hit new areas in France and Spain, while glaciers are melting rapidly and the oceans are at their hottest level on record. The enormous El Niño event emerging in the Pacific is likely to bring major disruption.

Every fraction of a degree makes things worse.

There are no good outcomes if we remain above 1.5°C. Urgent cuts to emissions and efforts to protect the most vulnerable are our best remaining options. Failure to do so risks irreversible harm.

Why does 1.5°C matter so much?
The 2015 Paris Agreement established a shared goal for the world: keep the rise in global average temperatures above pre-industrial levels “well below” 2°C and “pursue efforts” to hold warming to 1.5°C.

This goal was set based on expert scientific assessments that warming of more than 2°C would be dangerous and that limiting warming to 1.5°C was necessary to minimise climate risks.

Pacific nations fought hard to include 1.5°C in the agreement, arguing it was essential for their communities to “stay alive” in the face of rising sea levels and other climate-fuelled threats.

Last year, the world’s top court — the International Court of Justice — ruled that 1.5°C is the primary temperature limit nations have committed to work towards.

This ruling means that if governments fail to act as ambitiously as they can, they could be sued in international courts.

In May this year, a majority of nations voted in the UN General Assembly to endorse the court’s ruling and urge action to keep to 1.5°C.

It’s not time to give up
Warming of 1.5°C will be bad. But 1.6°C will be worse, and 1.7°C worse again. Every increase will bring more extreme weather, more loss of nature, more loss of land to the sea and more harm to humans.

If we stay over 1.5°C, we risk triggering climate tipping points — sudden shifts which cannot be undone on human timescales. These include the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets melting, the collapse of crucial heat-distributing currents in the Atlantic Ocean or the Amazon rainforest becoming a source of emissions.

Overshooting 1.5°C doesn’t mean it’s time to throw out the Paris Agreement. It is not working fast enough, but it is working.

Solar power and electric vehicles have boomed and electrification has accelerated. Nations have cut emissions enough to avoid the worst climate futures of a 3°C rise or even higher.

According to the Climate Action Tracker, the Paris Agreement has averted the equivalent of 1°C of warming. Rather than hitting 3.6°C by 2100, the world is on track for 2.6°C.

While this is progress, it is not enough. Global emissions are plateauing, but have still not begun to fall in earnest.

As damage from climate change mounts, leaders must do the work and begin rapidly cutting emissions to keep the goal of net-zero by 2050 alive.

To get temperatures back under 1.5°C, we will also need to pull gigatonnes of carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere using tree planting and nature restoration. We may also need technological approaches such as rock weathering or ocean alkalinity enhancement, though these are not proven at scale and can come with other risks.

We are all in this together
It may seem as if climate action faces impossible headwinds, as populism surges and the current United States administration doubles down on fossil fuels.

It is worth looking beyond these headlines. It took almost 70 years for the world to install a terawatt of solar power, but then just two years for the second and another two for the third terawatt. In ten years, that figure will likely have tripled. Developing nations are moving rapidly to take up non-polluting electric transport.

Climate change can no longer be ignored. As damage mounts, nations will have to cooperate to cut emissions as rapidly as possible and figure out how to safely and equitably pull carbon back out of the atmosphere.

Action depends on strong political will, inclusive governance, and finance to help developing countries cut emissions and adapt.

In November, Australia will lead negotiations at the next international climate summit, COP31, in Turkey. Leaders and diplomats will work to keep 1.5°C in reach — even after overshoot. Australia can point to its own rapid clean energy transition and urge others to set clear pathways to go electric — and wean themselves off the production and use of fossil fuels.

Climate change has been described as a super wicked problem — big, complex and impossible to solve simply. The solution is to see the urgency of the issue and act cooperatively to tackle it.

If we make it a problem for the next generation, there may be no way back to a safe climate.

Dr Jacqueline Peel is professor of law, The University of Melbourne; Dr Wesley Morgan is research associate, Institute for Climate Risk and Response, University of New South Wales. Republished from The Conversation under Creative Commons.

The Pacific nation of Tuvalu is planning to create a version of itself in the metaverse, as a response to the existential threat of rising sea levels.

Tuvalu’s Minister for Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs, Simon Kofe, made the announcement via a chilling digital address to leaders at COP27.

He said the plan, which accounts for the “worst case scenario”, involves creating a digital twin of Tuvalu in the metaverse in order to replicate its beautiful islands and preserve its rich culture:

The tragedy of this outcome cannot be overstated […] Tuvalu could be the first country in the world to exist solely in cyberspace – but if global warming continues unchecked, it won’t be the last.

Tuvalu’s “digital twin” message. Video: Reuters

The idea is that the metaverse might allow Tuvalu to “fully function as a sovereign state” as its people are forced to live somewhere else.

• READ MORE: What is the metaverse, and what can we do there?
• The internet consumes extraordinary amounts of energy. Here’s how we can make it more sustainable
• Ending the climate crisis has one simple solution: Stop using fossil fuels

There are two stories here. One is of a small island nation in the Pacific facing an existential threat and looking to preserve its nationhood through technology.

The other is that by far the preferred future for Tuvalu would be to avoid the worst effects of climate change and preserve itself as a terrestrial nation. In which case, this may be its way of getting the world’s attention.

What is a metaverse nation?
The metaverse represents a burgeoning future in which augmented and virtual reality become part of everyday living. There are many visions of what the metaverse might look like, with the most well-known coming from Meta (previously Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

What most of these visions have in common is the idea that the metaverse is about interoperable and immersive 3D worlds. A persistent avatar moves from one virtual world to another, as easily as moving from one room to another in the physical world.

The aim is to obscure the human ability to distinguish between the real and the virtual, for better or for worse.

Kofe implies three aspects of Tuvalu’s nationhood could be recreated in the metaverse:

• territory — the recreation of the natural beauty of Tuvalu, which could be interacted with in different ways
• culture — the ability for Tuvaluan people to interact with one another in ways that preserve their shared language, norms and customs, wherever they may be
• sovereignty — if there were to be a loss of terrestrial land over which the government of Tuvalu has sovereignty (a tragedy beyond imagining, but which they have begun to imagine) then could they have sovereignty over virtual land instead?

Could it be done?
In the case that Tuvalu’s proposal is, in fact, a literal one and not just symbolic of the dangers of climate change, what might it look like?

Technologically, it’s already easy enough to create beautiful, immersive and richly rendered recreations of Tuvalu’s territory. Moreover, thousands of different online communities and 3D worlds (such as Second Life) demonstrate it’s possible to have entirely virtual interactive spaces that can maintain their own culture.

The idea of combining these technological capabilities with features of governance for a “digital twin” of Tuvalu is feasible.

There have been prior experiments of governments taking location-based functions and creating virtual analogues of them.

For example, Estonia’s e-residency is an online-only form of residency non-Estonians can obtain to access services such as company registration. Another example is countries setting up virtual embassies on the online platform Second Life.

Yet there are significant technological and social challenges in bringing together and digitising the elements that define an entire nation.

Tuvalu has only about 12,000 citizens, but having even this many people interact in real time in an immersive virtual world is a technical challenge. There are issues of bandwidth, computing power, and the fact that many users have an aversion to headsets or suffer nausea.

Nobody has yet demonstrated that nation-states can be successfully translated to the virtual world. Even if they could be, others argue the digital world makes nation-states redundant.

Tuvalu’s proposal to create its digital twin in the metaverse is a message in a bottle — a desperate response to a tragic situation. Yet there is a coded message here too, for others who might consider retreat to the virtual as a response to loss from climate change.

The metaverse is no refuge
The metaverse is built on the physical infrastructure of servers, data centres, network routers, devices and head-mounted displays. All of this tech has a hidden carbon footprint and requires physical maintenance and energy. Research published in Nature predicts the internet will consume about 20 percent of the world’s electricity by 2025.

The idea of the metaverse nation as a response to climate change is exactly the kind of thinking that got us here. The language that gets adopted around new technologies — such as “cloud computing”, “virtual reality” and “metaverse” — comes across as both clean and green.

Such terms are laden with “technological solutionism” and “greenwashing”. They hide the fact that technological responses to climate change often exacerbate the problem due to how energy and resource intensive they are.

So where does that leave Tuvalu?
Kofe is well aware the metaverse is not an answer to Tuvalu’s problems. He explicitly states we need to focus on reducing the impacts of climate change through initiatives such as a fossil-fuel non-proliferation treaty.

His video about Tuvalu moving to the metaverse is hugely successful as a provocation. It got worldwide press — just like his moving plea during COP26 while standing knee-deep in rising water.

Yet Kofe suggests:

Without a global conscience and a global commitment to our shared wellbeing we may find the rest of the world joining us online as their lands disappear.

It is dangerous to believe, even implicitly, that moving to the metaverse is a viable response to climate change. The metaverse can certainly assist in keeping heritage and culture alive as a virtual museum and digital community. But it seems unlikely to work as an ersatz nation-state.

And, either way, it certainly won’t work without all of the land, infrastructure and energy that keeps the internet functioning.

It would be far better for us to direct international attention towards Tuvalu’s other initiatives described in the same report:

The project’s first initiative promotes diplomacy based on Tuvaluan values of olaga fakafenua (communal living systems), kaitasi (shared responsibility) and fale-pili (being a good neighbour), in the hope that these values will motivate other nations to understand their shared responsibility to address climate change and sea level rise to achieve global wellbeing.

The message in a bottle being sent out by Tuvalu is not really about the possibilities of metaverse nations at all. The message is clear: to support communal living systems, to take shared responsibility and to be a good neighbour.

The first of these can’t translate into the virtual world. The second requires us to consume less, and the third requires us to care.

Dr Nick Kelly, senior lecturer in interaction design, Queensland University of Technology and Dr Marcus Foth, professor of urban informatics, Queensland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

A New Zealand Pasifika climate activist has told the UN climate meeting that young Pacific people are not victims of climate change but beacons of hope.

The first day of the Leaders Summit is wrapping up at COP26 in Glasgow.

Environmental advocate for Samoa Brianna Fruean said Pacific people were not just victims of the climate crisis, but were beacons of hope.

• READ MORE: ‘Don’t fudge with our future’, Māori climate activist warns COP26
• Other Pacific COP26 stories

“This is our warrior cry to the world – we are not drowning, we are fighting.

“This is my message from earth to COP.”

She said Pacific countries were living in the reality of climate inaction with more frequent cyclones, floods and coral bleaching.

@Brianna_Fruean from the Pacific Climate Warriors @350Pacific spoke at the #COP26 Leaders Summit today sharing an important message to world leaders. “We are not drowning, we are fighting!” Listen to her powerful words below #PeopleToTheFront #DefundClimateChaos pic.twitter.com/6YHntMdvIz

— 350 dot org (@350) November 1, 2021

If the world leaders at COP failed, the people will step up, she said.

“I believe that COP is like a compass, that we are all in collective canoe and if we’re able to get COP right we can be pointed in the right direction.

“But at the end of the day, my ancestors travelled the oceans without compasses. So if COP doesn’t work, the people will.

The cyclones, the coral bleaching, the constant floods – climate change is all around us in the islands.@Brianna_Fruean from the Pacific Climate Warriors @350Pacific spoke at the #COP26 chatting to #BBCNews pic.twitter.com/21LqVYpGFP

— Naomi “under #COP26 movement takeover” Klein (@NaomiAKlein) November 1, 2021

Many Pacific nations face an existential threat from sea level rise.

Their work at the Paris agreement in 2015 was instrumental in getting the world to agree to try and keep warming to 1.5 degrees.

The world’s current emissions pledges will allow 2.7 degrees of warming, which will be catastrophic.

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

For 74-year-old Teaga Esekia, a chief from the Tuvalu island of Vaitupu, the ocean is a lifeblood.

“Tuvaluans, they have different types of months, not like January to December,” said the elderly but agile man, who still climbs coconut trees every day.

“They have their seasons according to fish and planting. We tell the time by fish.”

READ MORE: Thousands – young and old – demand government action on climate change

Esekia was sitting at the edge of the lagoon on Tuvalu’s main island, Funafuti, where he had travelled for a medical appointment. As he sat beneath a tree, sheltering in the breeze from the harsh afternoon sun, he told of how that ocean has changed.

“Some of the common fish, they’re very hard to find now in Tuvalu. That’s a problem we’re facing nowadays.”

His people on Vaitupu also sustained themselves by planting pulaka, a type of swamp taro, which are grown in pits.

“I can see most of the pits are now not growing because if you taste the water there, it’s salt. When we were young, these pits were growing very well. Nowadays it’s very hard,” he said.

IPCC Report
The changes seen by Esekia were starkly highlighted last week in the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report, which was written by more than 100 scientists and experts – including several from New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific – is based on more than 7000 scientific studies, providing one of the most comprehensive insights into the state of the oceans today.

It concluded that the oceans are heating at such a rate that their chemistry is being altered which, in turn, is threatening seafood supplies, fuelling more extreme cyclones and floods, and posing a profound threat to millions of people who live in low-lying areas.

For the Pacific Islands, it painted a grim picture.

“We already see in the Pacific these impacts,” said Helene Jacot des Combes, a scientist at the University of the South Pacific and adaptation advisor to the Marshall Islands government, who was one of the report’s contributing authors.

“It is true that all the changes in the ocean in terms of temperature, in terms of ocean acidification, will have a very important impact on the marine ecosystems and on the distribution of fish and other marine life,” she said. “We can already see some variation.”

‘Grim picture’
Jens Krüger, the manager for oceans affairs at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, who was not involved with the IPCC report but is on the executive planning group for the UN Decade of Ocean Science, said the conclusions painted a grim picture: the effects would be most keenly felt in the Pacific.

“It really confirms that our ocean is at a breaking point. It’s getting hotter, sea levels are rising, the ocean is becoming more acidic, and of course all of this is happening as our planet heats up,” said Dr Krüger.

“For us in the Pacific, the report also highlights that all these changes, and the rate and the magnitude of the changes which are already being observed, are highest in our region.”

The oceans act as a crucial buffer against global warming, absorbing about a quarter of the carbon dioxide that’s emitted, as well as taking much of the excess heat that’s trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. But the report says there’s so much that the oceans are becoming hotter and more acidic.

“These positive aspects of the ocean in the climate change is having a side effect in the ocean with the change in the chemistry, and that will have a lot of impact,” said Dr Jacot des Combes.

“For the Pacific, where people depend so much on the ocean, it’s very problematic.”

Ecosystems in disarray
These warming waters are throwing marine ecosystems into disarray, the IPCC said, as habitats wither. The frequency of marine heat waves – which kill fish, sea birds and coral reefs – has doubled since the 1980s, it said, while many fish populations are migrating far from their usual locations – like Vaitupu, in Tuvalu, where Esekia has noticed a decline – as they try to find cooler waters.

Already, Dr Krüger said, this was being keenly felt in the Pacific. This year alone, severe coral bleaching events have whitened reefs in French Polynesia and Guam, and fears have grown about whether they’ll recover as bleaching events become more common.

Heatwaves in the ocean are expected to become 20 to 50 times more frequent this century, depending on how much emissions increase, the report said, with vibrant underwater ecosystems like coral reefs and kelp forest all expected to suffer serious damage.

“Warm water coral reefs, for us in the Pacific, that’s our major ecosystem,” said Dr Krüger. “The report confirms that we are actually creating a world that is incompatible with our way of life.”

In the Pacific, reefs are some of the main sources of food, income and defence. Their fish and plants provide sustenance for locals, and income from fish exports and tourism. They also act as a barrier, dissipating the force of waves as they charge towards vulnerable islands and atolls, especially as sea’s rise, which is another of the report’s conclusions.

Rising seas
As ice sheets and glaciers melt, it said, ocean levels are being pushed up, making extreme flooding that was once rare become annual events.

That is already being seen in places like Kiribati and Marshall Islands, Dr Jacot des Combes said, where inundations were happening with increasing regularity.

Hotter ocean temperatures and rising sea levels also provide fuel for more destructive cyclones, which further imperil the coastal regions and low-lying states of the Pacific.

“We have seen that the number of category four and category five cyclones are increasing in the total number of annual cyclones,” said Dr Jacot des Combes.

While the report said the severity of the threats it outlined could be reduced if nations sharply cut their greenhouse gas emissions, it also pointed out that many countries would need to adapt to many changes that have now become unavoidable.

Dr Krüger said this included most Pacific countries, especially in the northwest Pacific, where sea level rise was already three to four times the global average.

Urgent priority
“We’re definitely not moving fast enough,” said Dr Krüger. “Really, the report concludes by highlighting, you know, that we have this urgency, we have to prioritise, we need to do it now.”

Esekia was sitting at the edge of Funafuti lagoon on the day of the leaders’ retreat of the Pacific Islands Forum in August, where the region’s leaders were meeting to try and thrash out a declaration on climate change.

That agreement was taken to the United Nations in New York last week, where world leaders again met to discuss climate change as a mass of youth-led climate strikes were held around the world, coinciding with the IPCC report’s release.

Most industrialised countries aren’t on track to meet their Paris Agreement targets, let alone the drastic changes called for in last week’s report.

Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine is calling for greater action.

“There is no excuse for large, wealthy and polluting nations not to act,” said Heine at a news conference.

“We are most heavily threatened and impacted and we are least equipped to tackle what are overwhelming challenges as we seek to cope or to respond.”

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

There was a frenetic energy outside the Sir Tomasi Puapua Convention Centre on Sunday, where the finishing touches were being hurriedly put to the newly-built centre on reclaimed land here on Tuvalu’s main atoll, Funafuti.

People were sweeping the freshly-laid pavement, laying out the desks inside, finishing off the wiring. Only on Thursday was a crane out front, hoisting the flagpoles into place.

Over the weekend, dozens of people painted walls, fences and even the roads, which had newly-planted shrubs along their length. Kids were enlisted in the island-wide spruce up, too, shooing dogs off the airport runway and rehearsing their welcoming songs.

READ MORE: West Papua, climate to top agenda at Pacific Islands Forum

They’re not quite finished, but they will be by the time Tuesday comes, said Enele Sopoaga, Prime Minister of Tuvalu, as he inspected progress on Saturday.

On Tuesday, Funafuti, a slither of an atoll just south of the equator, will see its population increase by about 10 percent as delegates pour in for the Pacific Islands Forum summit, an annual meeting that brings together the leaders from every country in the Pacific, and Australia and New Zealand.

For Tuvalu, it’s a daunting task. Nine atolls with a population of 11,000, it’s one of the world’s smallest countries. Accommodation is tight, and extra flights have been put on, (there’s normally only three a week), to get everybody here. They’ve built new accommodation and a convention centre.

The Secretary-General of the PIF, Dame Meg Taylor, was confident: “As the priest at mass this morning said, ‘a courageous effort to host this meeting,’ and he was right.”

That’s because it’s also one of Tuvalu’s greatest opportunities. Hosting the Forum gives it an opportunity to bask in the spotlight, to highlight the issues pertinent to it. Being on the front line of climate change, Sopoaga is hoping to hammer home his country’s push for greater commitments – particularly from the region’s largest economies, Australia and New Zealand.

But this year’s forum also comes at a time when the world’s attention is drawing in, with great powers competing for a slice of the pie. There are so-called pivots, resets, uplifts and step-ups, and they’re all likely to come with open arms and wallets.

But with that comes competing interests. The United States’ interest is in large part because of its contest with the rise of China. Australia and New Zealand’s are in part because of that too, while also making up for years of neglect.

China’s coming in part to win influence and allies, but also to finally end Taiwan’s support, while Taiwan’s here to maintain that support, as most of its dwindling international allies are here in the Pacific, Tuvalu among them. The UK’s here, looking for friends in a post-Brexit world, and others are coming too.

It could also be a recipe for a testy forum, especially when the leaders meet for the day-long retreat on Thursday, highlighting a growing chasm between the island states and the western ones, (Australia, in particular), on several matters.

Climate Change

On Saturday, Sopoaga stood out the back of the convention centre and gestured towards the lagoon. “This is our biggest threat,” he said. Then, the sea was a placid blue, but the threat it poses to Tuvalu is great.

Tuvalu is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world. Its highest point is little more than four metres, its widest point about the same — a causeway at the northern end of the main island of Funafuti, scarred by sand and debris washed across every time there’s a storm or king tide.

Hire a scooter or hitch a ride to travel the length of Funafuti, (it only takes about 20 minutes), and the signs of its vulnerability are everywhere. Wilted crops, palm trees leaning, their roots exposed, the ground hollowed out by a sea nibbling at their base.

When Cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu in 2015, Tuvalu suffered gravely. The ferocious seas whipped up by the category five storm inundated about 40 percent of the country, the government estimated. As sea levels rise, and the effects of climate change bed in, such events could become all the more frequent.

‘Save Tuvalu, save the world’

Sopoaga has made a name for himself bringing Tuvalu’s plight to the world, he’s been one of the key figures at climate talks, urging countries to commit to reducing carbon emissions, to increase their climate financing, and, in some cases, to even acknowledge the threat it poses. “Save Tuvalu, save the world,” has been his slogan.

Now, the leaders of the Pacific are coming to Tuvalu. The hall where the Presidents and Prime Ministers of the 18 countries will retreat to sits near that washed over causeway, in sight of the island’s narrowest point. There’s a reason for that.

“We have a big job to do this week. The job is to review where we are? Where do we want to go to, and how are we going to get there?” he said.

This year is the 50th Pacific Islands Forum, and Sopoaga – who is about to take over as chair, (for now, Tuvalu has elections on 9 September) – is looking to make climate change the key focus. He wants strong commitments in this year’s communiqué, to follow on from last year’s summit in which the Boe Declaration declared climate change the region’s single greatest security threat, and for a united statement to take to a major UN climate summit next month.

And that could bring some heat on the region’s two largest economies: New Zealand and Australia, both in the midst of trying to reinvent their relationships with their respective Pacific resets and Pacific step-ups.

NZ and Australia
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, will arrive on Wednesday, ready to tout her coalition government’s policy to cut carbon emissions, and its increased aid and support for climate diplomacy. The Pacific, however, is also aware that New Zealand’s emissions continue to rise, and will be asking whether what’s been announced is enough.

But she’ll get off lightly compared to Australia’s Scott Morrison, the recently re-elected conservative Prime Minister, who once famously raised a lump of coal in parliament, to the ire of Pacific leaders including Sopoaga.

Australia has come under fire from several Pacific countries for its climate stance in the lead-up to the forum, both in veiled criticism and explicit statements. Just in the past month, some Pacific leaders have issued a communiqué calling for it to end its support for coal and to avoid trying to water down climate commitments, as happened at last year’s summit in Nauru. Separately, Palau’s president Tommy Remengesau made a plea for further climate action.

Morrison, for his part, is fond of talking of the family relationship between the countries. He’s already visited the region three times since becoming Prime Minister, and will be keen to stress whatever ties he can, dodging the climate issue.

But that’s unlikely to placate countries who are demanding the region’s biggest player do more.

New friends and old foes
This year’s forum also comes at a time of simmering geopolitical tensions between powers on the ocean’s edges: mainly, the United States and China, which are both sending sizeable delegations to Funafuti. The US is understood to be sending an entire plane-load of officials.

Geopolitical plays have always been a part of the forum, but with the rise of China, things have taken on a new dynamic as some of the older powers – Australia, New Zealand and the United States – start to get jittery.

And that will be the key issue Morrison is likely to bring to the forum: security. Already, there has been a swathe of announcements. A Pacific security college, a range of new patrol boats for Pacific countries, joint military training, an Australian Pacific Force, and a naval presence – with the US – on Manus Island.

There is validity to that, as in the drug problems that are emerging in Pacific countries as a result of increased drug trafficking across the ocean, protecting vulnerable fisheries with few resources and vast oceans, and, to an extent, the threat of unrest.

But Canberra is a signatory to the Boe Declaration. That means it too must have acknowledged that climate change is the greatest security threat, and attention is likely to be drawn to that.

On different pages

This forum could show how much Australia, New Zealand and the regional states are reading from completely different pages.

Beyond that, the Taiwan issue could prove to be a thorn again. The island – which is regarded as a renegade state by China – is recognised by Tuvalu, as was the case for last year’s host, Nauru. There, there was a commotion when the Chinese delegation demanded speaking rights and stormed out after a confrontation with President Baron Waqa. It’s understood work’s been done to ensure such a scene is avoided this year.

But none of those things are what Sopoaga wants the focus to be on.

Children’s greeting

As leaders and delegates arrive at the airport, they walk off the plane to be greeted by a display. Children sit in a swimming pool, smiling and waving flags, behind them is a pile of sand, with wilted palm trees and a leaning fale.

The leaders are asked to pause and read a sign:

“Before us we see the devastating effects of climate change on our children; Sea level rising, land erosion, cyclone damage.

In your meetings this week remember: We must act before it is too late. We must save Tuvalu to save the world.”

Sopoaga said on Saturday: “We don’t care about that C [China], we’re only interested in doing something about that sea,” gesturing to the ocean.

Bainimarama returns

Voreqe Bainimarama strutted off the plane with a wide grin to arrive at his first forum in 12 years. Fiji was suspended in 2009 after his then-military government abrogated the constitution, three years after he took power in a military coup.

And, if statements in recent weeks are anything to go by, he’s looking to make his return count.

The Pacific Islands Development Forum, which Bainimarama established after Fiji’s suspension, met last month, where the strongly-worded Nadi Declaration was released. It declared a climate crisis, demanded an end to the use of coal, called on high-emitting countries to stop hindering climate change efforts, and demanded PIF members stop subsidising fossil fuels.

There, Bainimarama said this week’s forum should expect nothing less than concrete commitments to cut emissions.

“We cannot allow climate commitments to be watered down at a meeting hosted in a nation whose very existence is threatened by the rising waters lapping at its shores,” he said.

Bainimarama has in the past said he wouldn’t return to a forum meeting until Australia and New Zealand were no longer full members, criticising what he called an outsize influence. He’s back anyway, but that doesn’t mean he’ll make it easy for them.

But what does that mean for the hordes of Tuvaluans who raced to the runway to welcome the plane loads of dignitaries buzzing in? Lazing in a hammock beneath a tree on Sunday afternoon, watching the planes come in and out while escaping the searing midday sun, lay 14-year-old Saugali Koveu.

She’d been gripped by the spectacle; it had rarely been this busy before, she said.

“I hope they will take them back home, remembering the forum,” she said shyly. “Especially for the children’s future.”

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

AUT Indonesia Centre director Lester Finch and Auckland Indonesia Community representative Maman Baboe spoke strongly last night in support of Indonesian and New Zealand collaborative ventures such as the “Disasters, Cyclones and Communication” edition of Pacific Journalism Review, the first such joint media publication.

The Yoyakarta-based Center for Southeast Asian Social Studies (CESASS) at the Universitas Gadjah Mada collaborated with Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre to produce this joint edition, edited by Professor David Robie and five colleagues including the evening’s MC and assistant editor Khariah Rahman and associate editor Dr Philip Cass.

The project also included research papers from the University of the South Pacific.

Photographs by PJR designer Del Abcede.

PJR climate and disasters edition launch

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Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

The people of Natawaru Settlement in Fiji have seen their humble livelihoods grow more precarious as the effects of climate change take their toll.

From rising seas, depleted fish stocks and rising temperatures, the community is faced with a struggle for survival.

However, the people, who live near Fiji’s second city Lautoka on Viti Levu island, have declared themselves a “violence free community”.

Tide of Change is a short documentary film by student journalists at the University of the South Pacific: Koroi Tadulala, Aachal Chand, Mitieli Baleiwai, Venina Rakautoga and Kaelyn Dakuibure

Producer: Dr Olivier Jutel

• More Fiji stories

The chair of the PIF and President of the Federated States of Micronesia, Peter Christian, said limiting the temperature goal is critical to safeguard the wellbeing and existence of people in the Pacific.

“This is something the Forum is pushing very hard for because together the current, intended nationally determined contributions still fall considerably short of even reaching the ‘well below 2 degrees’ goal that was agreed to in Paris.”

‘Rapid response’

However, Christian praised the political will of the countries that prioritised their ratification of the Paris Agreement last week. This has enabled the Agreement to come into force from November 4, 2016.

“The Pacific called for a rapid response from the world to address the issues stemming from climate change, and we are very happy to see these first important steps being completed.

“While there is still a lot of work to be done, to see the global community rise to this challenge in this way gives us great hope.”

Next steps

President Christian said that from here the next steps were to ensure that the first meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement and the 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP22) in Marrakech in November, produces increased commitment for climate change action and resilience.

• Oxfam New Zealand has released two petitions this month demanding the New Zealand Government to improve its climate funds to better support the Pacific adapt to climate change and to ensure effective strategies are put into place to reduce emissions:
• Demand real climate action from our government 
• Cash to Adapt: Support our Pacific neighbors adapt to the impacts of climate change

By TJ Aumua in Daku, Fiji Islands

Rising sea levels are a major threat to coastal villages in the Pacific.

Daku village in the Rewa delta area in Tailevu, Fiji, is one village that faces the challenge every day.

Biu Naitasi, Daku’s headman, says that despite the village receiving a floodgate funded by USAid to help drain water, the sea level is still rising and the strength of waves is increasing.

Naitasi told Asia Pacific Report that sea water flooding in their village can reach up to their ankles, forcing some children in the village to relocate to another school.

The salt water has damaged their food plantations and eroded the wooden and concrete support beams on their homes.

While they wait for another floodgate to stop seawater flowing into their crops, they continue to be proactive, using people power to build higher seawalls and filling the flooded land with soil.

• Thanks to the people of Daku village and the University of the South Pacific’s Pacific Centre for the Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD), USAid and the Pacific Community in Fiji for support in making this video.

A 50-minute drive out of Suva city is Daku village, a community of 332 people nestled close to the sea and surrounded by mangroves.

As peaceful as it seems here, the village is one of many in Fiji where the people are working hard to adapt their daily lives to the burdens of climate change.

Village headman Biu Naitasi says he has noticed the sea-level rising around the village within the last 40 years.

But it wasn’t until five years ago, with the assistance of the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD) at the University of the South Pacific, first through an AUSAID project and then through the United States Agency for International Development’s Coastal Community Adaptation Project (USAID/C-CAP), that they understood the terminology and its link with climate change.

‘New term’

“[The term] climate change is something new for us. We haven’t heard about it before,” says Naitasi.

Arriving at the village, Asia Pacific Report bore witness to flood waters lapping on the door steps of village homes.

Remnants of the tropical cyclone Winston that savaged Fiji two months ago, and other tropical depressions which have left parts of the nation drenched in heavy rainfall, have left their mark.

Waterlogged land leaves the village vulnerable to water-borne infections, like dengue, filariasis, and diarrhoea, and in the worst case scenario, cholera and typhoid.

Floodgate system
In 2015, USAIDs’ C-CAP initiative implemented a floodgate system, built into the river wall which allows water to flow out of the village while blocking out sea water in high tides or floods.

But relief is still needed when king tides surge onto the land.

“Sometimes it’s up to our ankles,” Naitasi says. “We need another floodgate near our plantations as salt water has damaged our crops, but we’re waiting for funds.

“The plantation area of the village gets flooded every rainy season and during high tides.”

Sea water is also rusting and eroding the wooden and metal homes in the village.

The extreme weather in Fiji in the past month has seen the community having to rebuild and repair their homes.

“Some houses were blown off partly, and some completely, by the cyclone.”

Took shelter
Headman Biu Naitasi says villagers were unable to use electricity and because of flooding many were forced to take shelter in the community hall.

Asia Pacific Report was told the strong winds completely destroyed a family home, forcing all eight members living inside to relocate.

Like Daku, many villages and communities in Fiji are facing similar problems. They are doing the best they can; using traditional methods and human power to heighten coastal walls and eliminate flood water from their homes.

But climate change is escalating, leaving coastal villagers living with the burden of its effects daily.

“Tell them to believe it, climate change is happening,” says Naitasi, sending a message to the world.

“We can’t stop climate change, but we can reduce its effect.”

• More “Bearing Witness” project photos of Daku
• VIDEO: Climate change adaptation in a Fiji village

By Carole Landry in New York

With their very existence under threat from climate change, the world’s island states came to the United Nations this week not only to sign the Paris climate deal but to be first in line to make sure it goes into force.