When Simon Thompson, the chairman of the multinational mining giant Rio Tinto, was criticised by local NGOs at Rio Tinto’s AGM, held on 9 April 2021, over plans for a huge copper mine in Arizona, he responded by arguing that his company is committed to the fight against climate change, and argued that the transition to a low-carbon economy will necessitate the expansion of copper production.

That the peoples of the Pacific continue to speak with one loud voice when it comes to climate action and climate justice is of utmost importance not only for the PICs themselves, but also for the rest of the world. This voice carries significant weight in the international climate discourse and politics. We desperately need it.

The “state of the planet is broken”. This was the UN Secretary General’s succinct summation of the situation humankind finds itself in today. In his speech of 2 December on the global climate change emergency and the dramatic deterioration of the environment, he listed some of the most important facts which illustrate the severity of the current climate and environmental crisis: “The past decade was the hottest in human history”; “Carbon dioxide levels are still at record highs – and rising”; “We are headed for a thundering rise of 3 to 5 degrees Celsius this century”; “As always, the impacts fall most heavily on the world’s most vulnerable people. Those who have done the least to cause the problem are suffering the most”.