Climate ‘Securitising’ by the Pacific (chapter in "Security Cooperation in the Pacific Islands")
Publisher: Security Cooperation in the Pacific Islands
Author(s): Salā George Carter
Date: 2025
Climate change has evolved to take the central role in security discourse and policies in the Pacific region. Addressing climate change has been approached from development and its sectors. Nevertheless, there is a growing recognition of the work Pacific leaders and states have made in progressing policies that address not only climate change and security, but especially the nexus of climate security. This onus on climate security is best encapsulated in the Pacific Islands Forum’s (PIF’s) Boe Declaration on Regional Security, which states ‘climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and well-being of the peoples of the Pacific’.
This chapter explores how climate change has become linked to security as ‘the single greatest threat’ to the Pacific Islands. Its elevation to a top security priority reflects the multidimensional impacts of climate change, and its effect on society and states. Climate change is no longer limited to the discourses and policies around adaptation that focus on vulnerability and resilience, or mitigation actions to transition to low carbon futures; for the Pacific region and states, climate change impacts have political and security effects. As the author will show in this chapter, climate change has been ‘securitised’ by Pacific Island states and regional organisations in order to elevate their advocacy in the multilateral forums. In doing so, they have broadened the focus, scope and actors involved in security to be comprehensive. Furthermore, through the securitisation of climate change, amid geopolitical competition by external and larger states, the Pacific region and states have attracted global attention and resources.