Pacific Island leaders gather as region faces ‘polycrisis’ of threats – DNyuz

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The last time UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres held a summit with leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum, he made international headlines when he stood thigh-deep in the sea off the coast of Tuvalu, dressed in a suit and tie.

“Our Sinking Planet,” read the headline on the cover of TIME magazine, as Guterres looked mournfully into the camera and warned of the existential threat facing Pacific nations from climate change.

Five years later, the UN chief returns to the region for the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders Meeting, the annual gathering of the region’s leading political and economic groups. There is a growing sense of urgency as existential threats mount on multiple fronts.

In June, Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka described the Pacific region as facing a “polycrisis,” with climate change, human security, transnational drug trafficking and geopolitical competition all reinforcing and exacerbating each other.

Pacific leaders are expected to take action on these longstanding issues, as well as immediate ones such as the ongoing crisis in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, at next week’s meeting. More than 1,000 international dignitaries will then gather in Nuku’alofa, Tonga’s tiny capital of 23,000, from August 26 to 30.

In April, Tonga’s Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni warned against inaction at the upcoming meeting, announcing that the theme would be “Build Better Now”. He also called for “tangible results and outcomes”, and 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 “many ambitious issues on the agenda” at the meeting.

“There is a greater urgency around climate change, we are also much more concerned about the potential for escalating tensions between the US, China and other powers. Economically, countries are still recovering from COVID. There is also international drug trafficking,” she told Al Jazeera.

“If the region is to survive, it really needs something that drives their collective agenda and identity,” she added.

That “something,” leaders in the Pacific region are betting, is the far-reaching 2050 Strategy for a Blue Pacific Continent.

The document, which was approved by PIF members in 2022 and covers seven themes including justice and equality, climate change, economic development, and geopolitical and security trends, has been touted as a master plan for the region. But it has also been questioned for its broad nature.

“It’s seen as the priorities of the Pacific that the rest of the world needs to recognize and engage with,” Tarte said. “But there are obviously dangers with strategies like this, that they become a bit of everything and end up being nothing.”

A ‘significant’ appearance

Guided by Prime Minister Sovaleni’s remarks, PIF leaders will seek to make tangible progress on implementing the Pacific 2050 Strategy during their meeting in Tonga.

The group’s 18 member states, mostly low-lying islands and atolls, some just a few feet above sea level, are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Projected water-level rises will make much of the region uninhabitable by mid-century.

One of 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 expected to launch in 2025 and will help communities become more resilient to climate change and natural disasters.

Leaders are likely to endorse an earlier recommendation to host the facility in Tonga at next week’s meeting, but securing the necessary funding for the facility remains a major hurdle.

The Pacific countries aim to raise $500 million for the PRF by 2026, but have so far raised only $116 million. Of that, $100 million has been pledged by Australia, while the United States, China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have pledged a total of $16 million.

According to Kerryn Baker, a researcher at the Australian National University’s Department of Pacific Affairs, Guterres’ presence at PIF could boost the fundraising campaign.

“It’s a new approach to climate finance. It’s a Pacific-led approach, but it’s been hampered by the fact that it doesn’t have the external financing that it needs. Guterres’ presence will be important to draw attention to that gap between ambition and capacity at this moment,” she told Al Jazeera.

Meg Keen, a senior fellow in the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program, also described Guterres’ presence as “significant” in terms of drawing attention to the PRF on the international stage, saying that “he has influence.”

“Pacific Island states have consistently said that climate change is their biggest security issue. They are now saying they want the PRF to run,” Keen told Al Jazeera. “When you have the UN secretary general behind you, it builds pressure on countries to put their money into climate action.”

Drug trafficking problems

Drug trafficking is also high on the summit’s agenda. For decades, the vast and porous Pacific Islands have served as a stopover on transnational drug trafficking routes from Asia and the Americas, the world’s largest producers of methamphetamine and cocaine, to Australia and New Zealand, the world’s highest-paying markets.

But oversupply and the development of cheaper, lower-quality drugs have fueled local consumption. Countries like Fiji have been hit particularly hard, but it is a problem that affects the whole region, Keen said.

“Everybody is concerned about it, every country we go to is concerned about drug trafficking. Law enforcement is really struggling to get it under control,” she said.

“The Pacific is a transit area because it’s easy to move drugs. But it’s more than that now, because young people and local people are suffering from drug addiction. There’s an abundance of drug trafficking and it requires a lot of collaboration. That’s where the Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI) could come in,” Keen added.

The PPI is a proposed Australian initiative to provide training and capacity building to Pacific Island police forces. Its flagship program would be the establishment of a major training facility in Brisbane for Pacific Island officers who could then be deployed to regional crime hotspots.

Canberra has characterized the deal as a Pacific Island-led operation designed to respond to local needs in the face of rising crime. The unofficial aim, analysts say, is to bolster Australia’s role as a key security partner at a time when Beijing is also developing bilateral law enforcement partnerships, with Chinese police training teams working in countries such as the Solomon Islands and Kiribati.

Canberra hopes Pacific leaders will give their political backing to the PPI, which has a hefty price tag of more than AUD$400 million (about $270 million), at the Leaders Meeting. But with concerns it will cover the same ground as existing agreements, Tarte believes the PPI is “very much for show”.

“There will be some buy-in (at the Leaders Meeting), but I also know there is a lot of tension about it,” Tarte said. “The criticism is that it was developed without much consultation with the region, it may not be what the region needs and it duplicates efforts that are already underway.”

Tarte said the PPI is “another example” of one of the Pacific’s key international partners “pushing something that is a huge resource suck that may not have many benefits on the ground.”

“These projects are often driven by the wrong reasons. It’s about access, it’s about influence and it’s about control,” she said.

‘Oceans of Peace’

The Pacific region, long a place where major foreign powers have vied for influence, has only grown in strategic importance in recent years. Beijing has increased its engagement with Pacific island states over the past decade, much to the chagrin of traditional security allies the US and Australia, who fear a Chinese military presence in the region.

Fiji’s Prime Minister Rabuka has lamented the growing role of the Pacific as a geostrategic area and warned that “there is a high potential for miscalculations” as a multitude of competing interests collide. He has announced his Oceans of Peace concept.

“An Ocean of Peace must reflect the Pacific way… Humility, quiet leadership, reconciliation and communication,” he said of his initiative. “Anyone who enters the Pacific region will be forced to calm down and align themselves with the ways of the Pacific.”

Currently more of an ambitious idea than a solid plan, Rabuka has said he will bring his proposal up for discussion at the summit, in the hope that it will ultimately be adopted by Pacific nations. Baker of the Australian National University said the idea “seems to be getting quite a lot of attention” but that leaders “want more clarity on what it means in practice”.

“If any progress is made in developing this idea, it should lead to specific details about what an Ocean of Peace could mean for the region and what issues it would address,” she said.

Fiji’s ‘Oceans of Peace’ concept also reflects a long-standing, but growing, desire among Pacific nations to break away from the often-perceived image of the region as a battleground for major powers, and to gain some agency.

Keen said leaders in the Pacific have expressed concerns that too much emphasis on geopolitics, particularly from outside, “is trumping development priorities.”

“These forums should be about Pacific Island development first, not geopolitics,” she said. “They don’t want their region to just be a battlefield.”

One area where the malign influence of external powers and the struggle to be heard in the Pacific are still acutely felt is the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, which has been a full member of the PIF since 2016.

Tensions there erupted in May over Paris’ plan to give voting rights to recent arrivals in a move that indigenous people fear will dilute their influence. Months of violence have left deaths and billions of euros in damage.

Keen says it is a regional security issue that is high on the agenda at next week’s meeting, but there are limits to what can actually be done. “They can raise concerns, but they can’t force action,” she says, as France claims it as a sovereign issue.

“(Pacific leaders) are not going to be silenced by this, they can really emphasize that they have these concerns about colonization and the desire for decolonization sovereignty,” she said. “They want to know that Pacific people will have a voice.”

The post Pacific Island leaders gather as region faces ‘multiple crisis’ of threats appeared first on Al Jazeera.

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