Climate change and New Caledonia crisis come to Pacific Islands Forum

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) summit opened in the Kingdom of Tonga on Monday. On the first day of the summit, a 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck the Oceania nation, triggering only a brief coastal evacuation but no tsunami warning, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

FIP brings together 18 countries and territories, including New Caledonia and French Polynesia. Today, many of its members are threatened with total destruction as sea levels rise due to global warming. Countries like Tuvalu, with its highest point at just 4.6 metres, could disappear beneath the waves within thirty years.

“We are gathered together at a critical moment in our region’s history (…) We are on the front lines of the fight against climate change,” said Baron Waqa, secretary general of FIP, who is from the island of Nauru. Maina Talia, climate minister of the small, low-lying country of Tuvalu, urged “Most polluted country” To bear the growing costs associated with climate change economically, taking into account “The polluter pays principle must be put on the table.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was invited to attend the summit to emphasize the seriousness of the climate threat.

The decisions world leaders make in the coming years will determine the fate of Pacific Islanders and then the rest of the world. (…) If we save the Pacific, we save the world.

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations

Faced with foreign aid drying up, summit attendees are expected to renew calls for a local climate change adaptation fund. They will also consider the candidacy of Australia, one of the world’s major coal and gas exporters, as organizer of the 2026 COP31 climate conference. The indoor stadium where the Nuku summit is being held cost $25 million and was a gift from China. Beijing is determined to curry favor with small Pacific nations, using their largesse to build government buildings, stadiums, hospitals and roads.

Fearing that China would seize the opportunity to establish permanent military bases in the region, the United States and Australia have fought back by distributing aid, signing bilateral agreements and reopening long-abandoned embassies. The U.S. delegation to the forum was led by Kurt Campbell, one of the main architects of the U.S. effort to curb China’s ambitions in the Pacific.

To make matters worse, violence has been raging in New Caledonia (a full member of the FIP) since May. This topic was quickly raised on the first day of the summit. “We must reach a consensus on our vision for regional peace and security” Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni becomes Prime Minister. “We must respect our ancestors’ vision of self-determination, including in New Caledonia.”

On May 13, violence broke out in the French parliament during a review of an electoral reform project that critics accused of marginalizing the indigenous Kanak people. The reform has since been suspended, but separatists who want it abandoned entirely are still mobilizing.

The Kanak cause resonates widely in the Pacific bloc, whose former colonies are now fiercely proud of their independence. Waqa has been particularly critical of the transfer of pro-independence detainees arrested during the unrest to mainland France.