CANBERRA (CU)_Following China’s recent security pact with the Solomon Islands, relations between countries in the Pacific region are currently under the microscope. While several state officials and foreign diplomats have commented on the matter, so has the former chief of the Australian Defence Force, retired Admiral Chris Barrie, who called on Australia to prioritise climate security and not China in its ties with the region.
“Years of worsening diplomacy in the region, has led to Australia not being well trusted by Pacific nations, highlighted by the damaged relationship with the Solomon Islands government,” he noted. He went on to point out that it is not China, but the ongoing climate crisis that is the biggest concern among Pacific island states, some of whose very existence has been threatened by rising temperatures.
“The government needs to draw a red line on climate security, instead of specifically targeting the Solomon Islands,” Barrie said. “Pacific governments have long argued that climate change and security are inter-linked. The key to Australia’s successful re-engagement in the Pacific is a Pacific Climate and Security Initiative that would give priority to the Pacific’s needs.”
The initiative will include new commitments towards the Green Climate Fund, together with mitigation actions across the Pacific to limit to global warming 1.5°C, as agreed under the Paris Agreement.
“Australia continues to ignore the very plain facts that climate change represents the single greatest threat to the livelihood, security and wellbeing of Pacific people and this, in turn, has huge security implications for Australia,” the former ADF chief said. “Pacific island leaders have clearly and repeatedly identified climate change as the greatest threat to their peoples’ future security. This has been confirmed in official declarations from the Pacific Islands Forum, such as the 2018 Boe Declaration, which states that ‘climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific’.”
