During the 21st century, humanity will cross an important planetary boundary and head into a much more climate-insecure future. One characteristic of this future will be higher risks of climate-related disasters, such as droughts, storms, floods, and heatwaves.Both experts and policy makers have long expressed concerns about climate change as a security risk, with disasters playing a key role in these debates.

It was pitched as the “most significant” shift in Australia’s armed forces in decades. And among the headline announcements, climate change was recognised as an issue of national security. But the strategic review of Australia’s military released yesterday doesn’t go a lot further than that when it comes to the climate crisis.

As global environmental challenges grow, people and societies are increasingly looking to Indigenous knowledge for solutions. Indigenous knowledge is particularly appealing for addressing climate change because it includes long histories and guidance on how to live with, and as part of, nature. It is also based on a holistic understanding of interactions between living and non-living aspects of the environment. .

Labour migration has a long history in the Pacific islands’ region, from the ‘blackbirding’ era at the end of the nineteenth century when islanders came to work in the cane fields of Queensland, until this century when once again islanders came to work in Australia and New Zealand, this time in orchards and horticulture. .

The global climate narrative has been largely shaped by Eurocentric philosophies, frameworks, and concepts. In most cases, adaptation and mitigation measures are formulated outside of the Pacific region, trialed, and then implemented in the Pacific with the assumption that they are the best solution for the Pacific Island countries, without considering the indigenous knowledges that do exist at the grassroots.

Climate change may very seriously threaten the material necessities of life and wellbeing. However, focussing on the tangible can cause us to overlook or neglect the non-material elements of people’s security which for most people in, and from, Pacific Islands, are critically important.