News & Announcements

  Pacific Islanders hoping to flee the consequences of climate change and migrate to Aotearoa currently need to pay $1385 for the visa application, pass a health test, be under 45, and have a job offer. And they must also be lucky enough to have their name drawn from a ballot. World Vision advocacy and research advisor Dr Olivia Yates says Aotearoa's current immigration settings are not suitable for people migrating for climate-related reasons; termed "climate mobility." In her work with World Vision, Yates believes New Zealand needs an official visa pathway for climate mobility that is "rights-based."   Read more at RNZ International.   Image: hao hsiang chen/shutterstock.com

  Your Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, Dear Friends, All protocol observed, It is a great pleasure to address the Pacific Islands Forum. And allow me to express my deep gratitude to the government and the people of Tonga for their incredible hospitality. We meet at a turbulent time for our world. Raging conflicts; an escalating climate crisis; inequalities and injustices everywhere and the 2030 Agenda is faltering. But this region is a beacon of solidarity and strength, environmental stewardship and peace. The world has much to learn from the Pacific and the world must also step up to support your initiatives. Excellencies, This is a region of fearless seafarers, expert fishers, and deep ancestral knowledge of the ocean.   But humanity is treating the sea like a sewer. Plastic pollution is choking sealife. Greenhouse gases are causing ocean heating, acidification, and a dramatic and accelerating rise in sea levels. Pacific islands are showing the way to protect our climate, our planet and our ocean: By declaring a Climate Emergency and pushing for action. And with your Declarations on Sea Level Rise, and aspirations for a just transition to a fossil-fuel-free Pacific. The young people of the Pacific have taken the climate crisis all the way to the International Court of Justice. You have also rightly recognized that this is a security crisis – and taken steps to manage those risks together. I want to express my full support to the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, and I will do my best to help mobilize international resources for the Pacific Resilience Facility and to engage with all the relevant initiatives the Pacific Island Forum. Excellencies, The survival plan for our planet is simple: Establishing a just transition for the phaseout of the fossil fuels that are responsible for 85 per cent of the emissions of greenhouse gases. All countries must produce national climate plans – Nationally Determined Contributions – by next year, aligning with the 1.5-degree upper limit of global heating. The G20 – the biggest emitters responsible for 80 per cent of those emissions – must step up and lead, by phasing out the production and consumption of fossil fuels and stopping their expansion immediately. When governments sign new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future. The Pacific Island states’ ambition for a fossil-fuel-free Pacific is a blueprint for the G20 and for the world. But the region urgently needs substantial finance, capacities and technology to speed up the transition and to invest in adaptation and resilience. That is why we have been calling for the reform of the international financial architecture, for a massive increase in the lending capacity of Multilateral Development Banks, for debt relief programmes that work, including for middle income countries that are in distress, and an enhanced redistribution of Special Drawing Rights, to benefit developing countries and in particular Small Islands Developing States. Excellencies, The decisions world leaders take in the coming years will determine the fate, first of Pacific Islanders – but also of everyone else. In other words: If we save the Pacific, we save the world. Pacific Island States have a moral and practical imperative to take your leadership and your voice to the global stage. You demonstrated this leadership once again with the General Assembly’s endorsement of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index. We must now make sure that international financial institutions include them in their criteria for operations. The Summit of the Future in New York next month will be an opportunity to reform and update global institutions, so they are fit for the world of today and tomorrow.  Across the board, the Summit aims to provide developing countries with a greater voice on the global stage, including at the UN Security Council and in international financial institutions. I urge Pacific Island States to make your voices heard and heard loudly because the world needs your leadership. Thank you very much.    Image: lev radin/shutterstock.com

    Vanuatu has taken a leading role in a bloc of nations fighting to keep marine environment protection on the main agenda of the UN organisation responsible for developing global regulations for seabed mining. The assembly of the Kingston-based International Seabed Authority is meeting this week with a packed program, including a vote to pick the next secretary-general who could significantly influence the environmental constraints set on mining. For the full story, go to RNZ International/Pacific   Image: T Schneider/shutterstock.com'

  A new climate change research hub has been launched at the University of the South Pacific (USP). The new centre was officially launched on 5 August with initial funding from Aotearoa New Zealand International Climate Finance Strategy. For the full story, go to RNZ International/Pacific   Image: Dmitriy Prayzel/shutterstock.com

  By Toda Peace Institute Director, Kevin P. Clements Chaiwat Satha-Anand, aged 69,  succumbed to cancer on June the 27th 2024.  He was a wonderful human being, gentle caring and compassionate. He was a Thai Moslem which was unusual in strongly Buddhist Thailand. There is no doubt that this religious identity gave him a lifelong interest in how to negotiate all kinds of differences nonviolently. But it was the movements against Thai military dictatorships in the 1970s that gave him his passion for understanding how to resist repressive rule nonviolently. As he put it “I believe that violence is a problem you can overcome. I have learned that conflict is normal and natural, so I don’t aim to eradicate it. But violence is not normal. And a solution to conflict does not need to involve violence. There should be another option, which is peaceful means.” Chaiwat was the Director of the Thai Peace Information Centre which conducts studies and activism in relation to the Thai military and social issues. He was also Chairperson of the Strategic Nonviolence Commission in Thailand. His whole life was dedicated to nonviolence theory and activism, and he was particularly dedicated to understanding the peacebuilding traditions of Islam. For several years, he directed the International Peace Research Association's (IPRA) Commission on Nonviolence and he was an active member of the Asia Pacific Peace Research Association when I was its Secretary General. He was the 2012 winner of the El-Hibri Peace Education Prize. In 2003, he was nominated to head efforts to reduce violence in southern Thailand as a member of the National Reconciliation Commission. He delivered a key final report to the Royal Thai Government on how to de-escalate the violence. He was an excellent scholar as well as a NV practitioner. One of his important publications was “The Promise of Reconciliation? Examining Violent and Nonviolent Effects on Asian Conflicts,” (Transaction Publishers, 2016). More than all these achievements Chaiwat was a wonderful self-actualised human being. who embodied nonviolence as a way of life . He is sorely missed by all who had the good fortune to be in his company. He was a much respected Senior Research fellow of Toda until he retired because of ill health. He did not allow this illness to define him, however, and continued his work for peace until the end.  Toda sends deepest commiserations to  his partner, Dr Suwanna Satha Anand. Deepest condolences too, to all who worked with Chaiwat in APPRA, IPRA and the Centre for Non Killing in Hawaii. He was  a wonderful example to  all of us on how to embrace life and live it to the full.  As a mark of his high reputation, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, said “Even as I bid farewell to this remarkable soul, I find solace in the legacy he leaves behind. May his memory forever inspire us to walk the path of peace, seek understanding in the face of adversity, and build a world where harmony and respect reign supreme, ”RIP dear friend. Let’s honour his life by continuing his good work for a nonviolent Thailand in a nonviolent world.