Pacific Islands leaders to meet as region faces ‘polycrisis’ of threats

The last time UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres held a summit with the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum, he made international news as he stood thigh-deep, dressed in a suit and tie, in the sea off the coast of Tuvalu.
“Our Sinking Planet”, read the headline on the cover of TIME magazine, as Guterres looked mournfully into the camera, warning of the existential threat facing the Pacific countries due to climate change.
Pacific leaders will be expected to take action on these long-running issues at next week’s Leaders Meeting, as well as acute issues like the ongoing crisis in French overseas territory New Caledonia, when more than 1,000 international dignitaries descend on Nuku’alofa, Tonga’s tiny capital of 23,000, from August 26-30.
In April, Tonga’s Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni cautioned against inaction at the upcoming meeting, announcing that its theme would be “Build Better Now”. He also called for “tangible results and outcomes”, as well as for leaders to “move beyond policy deliberation to implementation”.
Sandra Tarte, an academic at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji who specialises in regional politics, said there were “a lot of ambitious things on the agenda” at the meeting.
“There’s a greater urgency around climate change, we also have a much deeper concern with the potential for escalating tensions between the US, China and other powers. Economically, countries are still recovering from COVID. There’s international drug trafficking too,” she told Al Jazeera.
“If the region is to survive, it really needs something to drive their collective agenda and identity,” she added.
A ‘SIGNIFICANT’ APPERANCE
With Prime Minister Sovaleni’s comments setting the tone, PIF leaders will be aiming to make tangible progress on implementing the Pacific 2050 strategy when they meet in Tonga.
The group’s 18 member states, mostly low-lying islands and atolls, sometimes just a few feet above sea level, are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Predicted rises in water levels are set to leave much of the region uninhabitable by the middle of this century.
Among their most ambitious mitigation efforts is the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), which aims to provide financial support to communities often overlooked by international donors. The “Pacific-owned and led” financial institution is scheduled to commence operations in 2025 and will help communities become more resilient to climate change and natural disasters.
The leaders will probably endorse an earlier recommendation to host the facility in Tonga at next week’s meeting, but raising the funding for the facility remains a major hurdle.
Pacific nations aim to raise $500m for the PRF by 2026 but have so far only secured $116m – $100m of which has been pledged by Australia, with the United States, China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey committing a total of $16m.
Guterres’s presence at PIF could help boost the fundraising campaign, according to Kerryn Baker, a research fellow in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University.
“It’s a new approach to climate finance. It’s a Pacific-led approach, but it has been hampered by the fact that it hasn’t got the external funding it needs. The presence of Guterres will be important in drawing attention to that gap between ambition and capacity at the moment,” she told Al Jazeera.
Meg Keen, a senior fellow in the Pacific Islands programme at the Lowy Institute, also described Guterres’s attendance as “significant” in terms of drawing attention to the PRF on the international stage, saying “he has leverage”.
“The Pacific island countries have consistently said climate change is their biggest security issue. They’re now saying they want the PRF up and running,” Keen told Al Jazeera. “If you’ve got the UN secretary-general backing you up, that does build pressure for countries to put their money behind climate action.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/