International: Pacific
Marshalls first to submit new climate targets
22 Nov 2018
The Marshall Islands is the first country to submit new, binding climate targets to the United Nations this week, sending a signal to other countries to commit to more ambitious emissions cuts.
Ardern talks climate on Asia-Pacific swing
20 Nov 2018
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern used international talks in Papua New Zealand and Singapore to push for action on climate change, her office says.
Palau bans sunscreen to protect coral reefs
8 Nov 2018
Palau is set to become the first country to ban reef-toxic sunscreen.
Nauruans (and refugees) have nowhere to hide
23 Oct 2018
Everyone on Nauru – indigenous Nauruans and refugees alike – is experiencing the impacts of one the greatest social, economic and political threats faced by the world today: global environmental change.
Marshalls vow to be carbon neutral by 2050
27 Sep 2018
The Marshall Islands have released a comprehensive climate strategy to go carbon-neutral by 2050, becoming the first island nation to do so.
Australia tried to water down Pacific stand, says PM
7 Sep 2018
Australia tried to water down a resolution on climate change agreed by country representatives at the Pacific Islands Forum, a leader attending the event has claimed.
NZ backs Pacific call for UN to do more
6 Sep 2018
New Zealand is backing other Pacific nations calling for the United Nations to up its game over the security threats posed by climate change.
Mental hospital best for some leaders, says Samoa PM
3 Sep 2018
Samoan leaderTuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has called climate change an “existential threat ... for all our Pacific family” and said that any world leader who denied climate change’s existence should be taken to a mental hospital.
STORM SURGE: Hurricane Lane carries warning for the Pacific
27 Aug 2018
Warming water in the Central Pacific as global temperatures rise is likely to boost tropical storm activity in a region largely spared in the past.
Tesla to boost power in Pago Pago
24 Aug 2018
American Samoa is transforming to 100 per cent renewable energy with the help of a Tesla powerpack.
New Caledonia votes to protect coral reef
20 Aug 2018
New Caledonia has agreed to tougher protections around a huge swathe of some of the world’s last near-pristine coral reefs, in a move conservationists hail as a major breakthrough.
Palau plans the fastest-ever shift to renewable energy
20 Jul 2018
Palau plans to stop buying diesel and go 100 per cent solar by the end of 2019 - offering a blueprint for other Pacific nations to do the same.
Spotlight goes on NZ climate aid to Pacific
19 Jul 2018
New Zealand’s support for Pacific countries threatened by climate change will be under the spotlight in Fiji next week.
Islands show little interest in insurance offer
3 Jul 2018
Only a handful of Pafific Islands nations have signed up to an insurance scheme that dispenses rapid payouts in a crisis - a situation experts hope to change.
Majuro tidal graphics made them weep
25 Jun 2018
Striking sea-level rise images have sent shockwaves through the Marshallese community and brought some EU ministers to tears.
Climate will empty islands in just decades, warns report
27 Apr 2018
Low-lying atolls around the world will be overtaken by sea-level rises within a few decades, according to a new study.
Climate change threatens Fiji's survival, says PM
4 Apr 2018
Fiji is in a fight for survival as climate change brings almost constant deadly cyclones, says Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.
Changing climate threatens Easter Island's mighty moai
19 Mar 2018
Rising sea levels are eroding Easter Island and its many archaeological sites, including its iconic moai statues and village remains.
NZ and island nations pay climate fee on time
30 Jan 2018
New Zealand and five small states in the area are among the handful of countries that have paid this year’s dues to the United Nations’ climate change work.
Fiji summit calls for action on climate migration
11 Dec 2017
Civil society leaders from more than 100 countries meeting in Suva have called for action on climate-induced displacement.
Rising tides lap at the Pacific's dome of poison
29 Nov 2017
Rising seas caused by climate change are seeping inside a United States nuclear waste dump on a remote and low-lying Pacific atoll.
It's not a done deal, low-lying islands can shape a future
20 Nov 2017
While the plight of low-lying Pacific islands should not be ignored, it is just as damaging to assume that their fate is already sealed.
Fiji told it must spend billions to adapt to climate change
13 Nov 2017
Fiji must spend an amount equivalent to its entire yearly gross domestic product over the next 10 years to counter the challenges of a changing climate.
Risk growing for Pacific islands, says study
10 Nov 2017
Many nations have become less vulnerable to natural disasters ranging from cyclones to earthquakes because of improved preparedness, but Pacific island states remain most at risk, a new study shows.
LOST LANDS: Rising seas washed away Pacific history
9 Nov 2017
The story of the now-vanished Micronesian island of Nahlapenlohd holds some valuable lessons about recent climate change in the western Pacific.
Pacific Islanders call on Australia not to fund Adani
2 Nov 2017
Pacific Islanders whose homes face eradication by rising sea levels have called on Australia to not fund the Adani Carmichael coalmine, as a new report reveals the worsening impact of climate change across Oceania.
KIRIBATI CRISIS: A long time waiting for the tide to turn
25 Oct 2017
The 33 islands of Kiribati are under threat from climate change. But the islanders have not given up hope.
NOT GUILTY: Easter Island falsely blamed for own demise
16 Oct 2017
Rapa Nui (Easter Island) has become the ultimate parable for humankind’s selfishness; a moral tale of the dangers of environmental destruction. But new research paints a very different picture.
Ministry denies cutting climate aid to Pacific
9 Oct 2017
New Zealand is denying an accusation that it is cutting its climate aid to the Pacific.
Tsunami wreckage serves as liferafts for invasive species
3 Oct 2017
Hundreds of species were carried across the Pacific to North America by debris — estimated to weigh a total of nearly 1.5 million tonnes — that was swept out to sea after the 2011 Japan earthquake.
VIVA VIKA: Giant rat lives in trees and eats coconuts
29 Sep 2017
A fabled giant rat known as the vika is the first new Solomon Islands rodent to be described in more than 80 years.
Easter Island becomes one of world's largest marine parks
11 Sep 2017
One of the world’s largest marine protection areas has been created off the coast of Easter Island.
Tributes pour in for islands' climate hero Tony de Brum
24 Aug 2017
Friends and colleagues remember Tony de Brum as a fighter for nuclear justice and a safe climate future, after his death in Majuro aged 72.
Islands need better data to manage climate losses
22 Aug 2017
In the Pacific and the Caribbean, island nations are already hit by climate change, but lack tools to measure the damage for leverage in international negotiations.
Australia just doesn’t get Pacific Islands' challenges
10 Aug 2017
Australia can help Pacific Island communities in a much wider range of ways than simply responding to disasters such as tropical cyclones.
There are ways we can save island nations from rising seas
28 Jul 2017
As sea levels rise, many island states could soon be annihilated and their residents forced to flee, rendering extinct their societies.
Fiji COP presidency must not fail climate victims
20 Jul 2017
Despite warm words about protecting the vulnerable, the island presidency of this year’s UN climate talks is showing no urgency on “loss and damage”.
Rising seas threaten scores of Pacific species with extinction
19 Jul 2017
The Chuuk flying fox. The Black-spotted Cuscus. The Fijian crested iguana. The Mariana skink. The greater monkey-faced bat. Poncelet’s giant rat. They live on islands in the Pacific and they are facing extinction.
How a shipping firm took control of a country’s UN mission
7 Jul 2017
How the climate-threatened Marshall Islands came to be represented at UN shipping talks by a private company based in Virginia, 11,000km away.
Pacific nations push for Paris pact commitments
6 Jul 2017
A commitment by rich nations to the Paris Agreement and an end to fossil-fuel development were the two major issues to come out of a pan-Pacific climate meeting in Fiji this week.
Open your doors to climate refugees, Fiji tells US
4 Jul 2017
Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has called on the US to open its borders and offer a permanent home to the people of the Marshall Islands threatened by rising seas.
Paris agreement only way to save coral reefs
28 Jun 2017
Greater emissions reductions and delivering on the Paris climate agreement are now “the only opportunity” to save coral reefs the world over from decline.
US exiting climate pact will hurt small islands
26 Jun 2017
To small island nations where the land juts just above the rising seas, the US pulling out of the Paris global warming pact makes the future seem as fragile and built on hope as a sand castle.
Coral reefs hold the history of the seas
21 Jun 2017
Much like tree rings, coral reefs can tell stories about how environmental conditions have changed over time.
NZ gives Fiji million-dollar handout for UN talks
22 May 2017
New Zealand is giving Fiji $1.3 million and the services of our top climate ambassador to help to chair international climate negotiations later this year.
Is Pacific climate message missing the God factor?
18 May 2017
Well-meaning nations who find their Pacific aid projects don't work out might find the reason, in part, is the sidelining of God.
38 million pieces of plastic waste found on Pacific island
17 May 2017
Henderson Island, part of the Pitcairn group, is covered by 18 tonnes of plastic – the highest density of anthropogenic debris recorded anywhere in the world
OPINION: We must plan for climate refugees
10 May 2017
What will New Zealand do when 12,000 climate refugees from Tuvalu arrive on its doorstep?
Global warming could speed up if the Pacific Ocean gets cranky
10 May 2017
Conditions in the Pacific Ocean over the coming decades will determine how fast we get to 1.5deg global warming.
World Bank presses NZ on climate refugees
9 May 2017
The World Bank says New Zealand should accept more migrants from the Pacific to pre-empt a flood of climate refugees.
Australia's greenhouse gas emissions drop as renewable energy, batteries surge
Mon 8 Jun 2026
Australia's greenhouse gas emissions have dropped, showing signs of a turning point in the country's most polluting sectors.
Researchers say this new Trump rule could destroy American science as we know it. They’re fighting back
Mon 8 Jun 2026
Scientists across multiple disciplines are sounding the alarm after the White House proposed taking greater control over how scientific research gets funded and allowing political appointees to decide whether to approve scientific grants.
Why China's critical minerals strategy leaves the US behind
Mon 8 Jun 2026
The United States cannot realistically recreate that dominance overnight even if the political will existed.
EU sues Ireland over failure to protect carbon-rich bogs
Mon 8 Jun 2026
The European Commission is taking Ireland to court over its failure to protect environmentally crucial boglands from commercial turf-cutters.
Britain sets 87% emissions reduction target by 2040
Thu 4 Jun 2026
Britain on Tuesday set a target to cut emissions by around 87% by 2040 from 1990 levels as it increases efforts to meet net zero goals that it says will help to curb energy costs and create jobs, but it has yet to outline how the goal will be met.
Canada signs landmark LNG energy deal with Germany
29 May 2026
Canada has announced a landmark energy agreement with Germany that will see the first-ever long-term shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Canada to Europe in the coming years.
Heat is a growing threat to the Hajj – even in spring
Thu 4 Jun 2026
Temperatures during the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia are rising as climate change accelerates, according to a growing body of research.
‘Triple whammy of climate chaos’: Why Antarctica's sea ice collapse is no longer a mystery
11 May 2026
Scientists have finally identified the ‘triple whammy’ behind Antarctica’s dramatic collapse, shedding new light on the chain reaction that has pushed its sea ice to record lows.
Aid cuts and climate change drive deadly malaria surge in Zimbabwe
29 May 2026
A surge in malaria cases in Zimbabwe is exposing fragile health systems and growing treatment shortages in rural areas.
Colombia’s climate crossroads: Trumpism casts shadow over presidential battle
26 May 2026
Colombia is a global leader in climate activism. Could US influence drag country to a future of mining and fracking?
What to expect from the Bonn climate talks
Mon 8 Jun 2026
The annual June climate talks in Bonn are taking place this year against the backdrop of an oil and gas supply crisis tied to the Iran war and deadly heatwaves in Europe, India and the Middle East. Can they produce anything substantial to ease the squeeze on economies and communities around the world?
