Let’s be clear, people displaced by climate breakdown are not climate refugees under international law. They are not being forced from their countries because of persecution by their own government. Nor are they migrants. They are not leaving in search of work or education, or to be closer to family. Rather, many millions of people are likely to be dispossessed from their homes by the choices of other countries to continue to pollute the atmosphere, without a legal framework to protect them.

In a landmark decision, a United Nations committee on Friday found Australia’s former Coalition government violated the human rights of Torres Strait Islanders by failing to adequately respond to the climate crisis.

At the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2022, the leaders of the small island – or ‘big ocean’ – countries in the Pacific called for a re-focus on the global climate emergency. Using their moral authority, which is grounded in the fact that their countries are the ones most affected by this emergency while contributing hardly anything to its causes, Pacific leaders demanded more decisive climate action and put forward new proposals and initiatives.

The meeting of the leaders of the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) countries in Suva, Fiji, in mid-July drew more international attention from beyond the region than usual, as it took place at a time of increasing geo-strategic competition between USA and China. Moreover, it was the first in-person meeting of leaders since 2019. For the last two years, the COVID pandemic has made such meetings impossible.

The Pacific Islands security narrative is often dominated by voices and interests from outside of the region. At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue, among the hype surrounding geo-strategic competition in the Pacific, Fiji’s Defence Minister Inia Seruiratu said that the “single greatest threat to our very existence is ... human-induced, devastating climate change.”

Civil societies are key actors in the fight against climate change. They provide a fillip where state agencies and intergovernmental processes lag and have the potential to hold these actors accountable in the fight against climate change. The People’s Republic of China, despite all its trappings of being a communist authoritarian state, has allowed a considerable yet well-defined space for environmental civil society organisations, including those working on climate change.