Tension at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) is not new. At the summit in 2018, China’s envoy started a spat with the host country, Nauru, which recognized Taiwan at the time. In 2019, at the summit in Tuvalu, Australia was the disruptor. The leaders’ meeting almost broke down twice because Australia’s then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison refused to budge on fossil fuels and emissions; he even pressured Pacific leaders to amend their communique to align with Australian policies. Tuvalu’s then-Prime Minister, Enele Sopoaga, told him: “You are trying to save your economy, I am trying to save my people.”
In 2020 and 2021, leaders met virtually, and in 2021, the PIF almost fractured when a Polynesian candidate was chosen as secretary-general, causing Micronesian countries to threaten withdrawal from the forum (the rift was eventually resolved). In 2022, with Australia’s new government led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, there was an seeming reprieve from clashes over climate change, but tensions remained. In 2023, under pressure from Pacific leaders to do more to fight the climate crisis, Albanese sought to assuage their concerns by announcing a new climate agreement with Tuvalu. And in 2024, China took center stage again when it pressured the forum to remove Taiwan’s name from the communique.
This year’s PIF summit, which took place from September 8-12, made headlines well before it began. The host, Solomon Islands, refused entry to Taiwanese officials earlier this year, sparking concerns that Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele had acquiesced to pressure from China to sideline Taiwan. Solomon Islands has fostered closer relations with China since recognizing it in 2019, and signed a controversial security agreement with Beijing in 2022 when Manele was foreign minister. Ultimately, all forum partners were excluded from the summit in Honiara, an apparent compromise to limit Taiwan’s participation without banning it specifically.
The forum has over a dozen dialogue partners, including China and the United States; Taiwan has attended the PIF as a development partner since 1992. Manele’s move to block partners from attending this year sparked criticism from Fiji, the Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu over concerns that it undermined regional unity and shut out Taiwan. Fellow PIF members Australia and New Zealand also protested the move, and it became a topic of international scrutiny, with observers questioning whether Taiwan’s role would be acknowledged in this year’s communique. It was.
But, for all its space in the headlines, the exclusion of dialogue partners is clearly not the main challenge facing the Pacific region. According to Sione Tekiteki, senior lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology and a former PIF adviser, “The real tragedy lies in the fact that this so-called ‘divisive issue’ is neither of our making, nor particularly central to our own strategic or developmental priorities.”
There is a “power imbalance” in the forum, Tekiteki explained, stemming from the unequal relationship between its larger, wealthier members — Australia and New Zealand — and the Pacific Islands. Australia defines security in terms of deterrence against China, and Canberra is currently pursuing security agreements with Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea in an attempt to limit Beijing’s influence. But the Pacific notion of peace and security tends to look very different.
Climate change is an existential threat to the Pacific Islands, and a threat that the international community has not acted quickly or decisively to mitigate. This year, the PIF made a significant step forward by signing and ratifying an agreement to create the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), the first financial institution collectively owned by Pacific governments. The new funding mechanism was created in response to the difficulty Pacific communities have in accessing global climate finance, which is “too little, too slow, too complicated,” according to a PIF factsheet. The Pacific must compete with the whole world to access the Green Climate Fund, for instance. The PRF will support small-scale regional projects on climate adaptation and resilience.
Australia has committed AU$100 million (US$66 million) to the PRF, making Canberra the single largest contributor. But funding for resilience projects is not enough: the islands also need the biggest polluters to reduce their emissions and phase out fossil fuels, which is why Australia’s expansion of oil and gas projects continues to be a source of tension with Pacific Island countries. On the sidelines of the PIF, Vanuatu’s climate minister, Ralph Regenvanu, warned Australia that its plans to expand the North West Shelf gas project could violate the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on the responsibility of states to address climate change, including the responsibility to prevent harm.
The ICJ advisory opinion in July was the culmination of a long and difficult effort started in 2019 by a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu. Their campaign was supported by Regenvanu and later by the Pacific Islands Forum and the broader international community. After years of frustration at the slow pace of global climate action, the ICJ ruling — which was unanimous — was a triumph for Pacific activists.
“Vulnerable communities such as mine, who didn’t cause the climate crisis, are already experiencing it,” said Cynthia Houniuhi, one of the original group of students who championed the ICJ campaign, last year. Houniuhi is currently an assistant law professor at the University of the South Pacific and president of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change. The ICJ ruling “confirmed what we have always known: climate change is violating our human and environmental rights, and countries that continue to burn fossil fuels are responsible,” she wrote this month.
“The ICJ opinion has vindicated the Pacific’s standing as not a passive victim of climate change, but as an active agent of global conscience,” according to Bal Kama, adjunct assistant professor at the University of Canberra School of Law. The ruling, he said, “carries the voice of the Pacific to the world.”
PIF leaders, in this year’s communique, lauded the ICJ advisory opinion and urged all countries to use it “in implementing their respective obligations nationally and internationally.” Leaders also “strongly encouraged all Forum Members to consider the ICJ [Advisory Opinion] when engaging in international climate change negotiations and associated processes, and” — in language clearly aimed at Australia — “to uphold the importance of maintaining the 1.5°C global temperature goal in accordance with the Paris Agreement.” This is referred to in the Pacific and elsewhere as “1.5 to stay alive.”
This is not to suggest that Pacific Island countries are unified on every issue. Deep-sea mining remains a topic of much disagreement. The same is true of Israel and Palestine. This year, PIF members committed to continue reviewing regional architecture, with the exception of Nauru. The “Ocean of Peace” declaration endorsed by regional leaders made no reference to the increasing militarization of the Pacific. PIF members continue to balance concern for human rights in West Papua with their ties to Indonesia.
Given how significant the ICJ advisory opinion is for the Pacific, it is also notable that the world’s largest carbon emitters — Australia, China and the United States — argued against the need for the ruling. Weeks later, U.S. President Donald Trump took office for a second time and withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, again. The United States’ $20 million contribution to the PRF has so far survived Republicans’ foreign aid cuts, but this small amount, if it materializes, won’t convince the Pacific Islands that the United States is with them in the fight against climate disaster.
Among those who follow the Pacific in Washington, there has been much concern over U.S. exclusion from this year’s PIF. But of far greater worry should be the U.S. relationship with the Pacific more broadly: the United States is not seen as a reliable partner or as a leader on global climate issues.
“The U.S. has always been out of the picture anyway in terms of ambition,” Regenvanu said.
Looking forward, China’s pressure on Taiwan is likely to persist, and Palau, which recognizes Taipei, will host the PIF next year. Tension between Australia and the Pacific Islands over climate change is likely to persist too. Pacific governments are also unsatisfied with China’s climate policies: Beijing worked against Pacific Island countries at the ICJ and pledged a meager $500,000 to the PRF, although it has other regional climate initiatives. But Australia’s policies are particularly disappointing to the region because it is a fellow PIF member. Australia has an opportunity to do better next year if it hosts COP31.
When Houniuhi talks about the harm that climate change is doing to her home, it’s personal. How could it not be? Government officials in Canberra and Washington need to realize that their policies are personal, too, both in the sense that they affect human lives, and in the sense that countries will be blamed for the harm they cause. When Australia refers to itself as part of the “Pacific family,” or when the United States claims that it is a good partner to the region, Pacific Island leaders will remember that Canberra and Washington sided against them at the ICJ while continuing to expand oil and gas production.
By virtue of geography and aid-dependence, the Pacific Islands can’t turn away from Australia — the United States, while a much smaller donor, is also embedded in the region — but relationships can still fray. (Australia’s treatment of Pacific journalists this year didn’t help its image.) If Australia and the United States are serious about being more attractive partners than China, signing new security agreements and building up military infrastructure won’t be enough. Even when they try to sweeten the deal for Pacific Island countries, these efforts primarily serve their own interests, not Pacific interests. Sooner or later they will need to reckon with the harm their climate policies do to the region.
The ICJ advisory opinion, Houniuhi wrote, “will not save my home or calm the angry oceans. Our fight is not over. Countries like Australia that continue to dig up, export or burn fossil fuels, must take action or be held accountable.” Even if countries refuse to provide financial compensation, they may pay in other ways, in lost influence and damaged relationships.