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Rising seas are endangering the habitability and very existence of several small island nations, mostly in the Pacific and Indian oceans. This is the first book to focus on the myriad legal issues posed by this tragic situation: if a nation is under water, is it still a state? Does it still have a seat at the United Nations? What becomes of its exclusive economic zone, the basis for its fishing rights? What obligations do other nations have to take in the displaced populations, and what are these peoples' rights and legal status once they arrive? Should there be a new international agreement on climate-displaced populations? Do these nations and their citizens have any legal recourse for compensation? Are there any courts that will hear their claims, and based on what theories? Leading legal scholars from around the world address these novel questions and propose answers.

Prevailing narratives of security in the Pacific have been framed as a contest between the so-called Indo-Pacific security narrative with its China-threat focus and the human-security and environment focus of the so-called Blue Pacific narrative. The main purpose of this article is to explore areas of convergence as well as divergence in these regional security narratives. The question posed is how the Pacific’s regional security priorities on climate change can be advanced alongside the geopolitical and geostrategic priorities of the region’s major external powers. Past examples of security cooperation in the Pacific point to the way different security narratives and agendas can come together to deliver outcomes probably acceptable to all parties. With this background, the possibilities of cooperation arising from the Boe Declaration on regional security, adopted by the Pacific Islands Forum in 2018, are examined. The article suggests that the current geopolitical environment provides opportunities for Pacific states to drive their agenda by leveraging the complementary security interests of major external powers in the region. However strategic competition between the major powers could in the long term be counterproductive to achieving the region’s climate change goals and ambitions.

Climate-change impacts, especially those on health, are widely unequal and inequitable. For Pacific Island peoples, climate change has been suggested as perpetuating and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and poor health outcomes related to the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age and the surrounding social and political organization of society—the social and structural determinants of health. In this analytical literature review, we evaluate the diverse impacts of common climate-change interventions—including migration, ecosystem-based management, community-based adaptation, and adaptation of the tourism industry and health sector—through the lens of these determinants of health, highlighting both opportunities and challenges. We show that climate-change interventions around the Pacific present possibilities not only to address the direct impacts of climate change but also, with careful planning and local leadership and action, to positively impact the determinants of health for Pacific Islanders. By intentionally designing and leading climate-change interventions that improve these determinants of health, Pacific communities could decrease their vulnerabilities to the health impacts of climate change while promoting better health outcomes in general.

Over the past two decades, foreign discourses of climate change have envisioned the demise of the tropical island as a tragic metaphor for the fate of the world. Oceanians have indeed borne the brunt of the age of climate change; however, not all have submitted to the colonial trope of passive victims on the frontline of global forces beyond their control. While political, legal, and cultural forms of resistance have been well documented in the scholarship of Oceania, there remains a largely unexplored field of academic inquiry concerning the role of Oceanian activist art-story. This article seeks to redress this shortfall by examining the central importance of Tongan artist Latai Taumoepeau’s body-centered performance art within the settler-colonial context of Australia. Given the historical failings of successive Australian governments to address climate change, since 2013 Taumoepeau has consistently used embodiment-driven art performance to confront the apathy of Australia’s leadership and settler public and to highlight the importance of Indigenous Pacific environmental stewardship and leadership in addressing these issues. Weaving talanoa-based interviews with critical analysis, I examine several of her artistic works, including i-Land X-isle (2012); Repatriate (2015); Ocean Island, Mine! (2015); War Dance of the Final Frontier (2018); Archipela_GO . . . . this is not a drill (2017); and HG57 (Human Generator 57) (2016–2020). These projects illuminate the power of diasporic Pacific arts not only to solidify an enduring regional identity vested in Oceania but also to engage the broader Australian public around the ongoing environmental concerns of Oceania.

Yet despite the sustained talk lamenting the very real effects of climate change, the RMI government pushed ahead with the $15.7 million airport runway expansion project funded by the US Federal Aviation Administration (usfaa), resulting in the continued dredging of healthy coral reefs in Majuro Lagoon. Mean- while, the reef dredging continues, and delegates to the Pacific Islands Forum who arrive in Majuro to discuss the need to protect low-lying islands and atolls from the ravages of climate change and sea-level rise will, on their way into town, first drive by the crane dredging some of the last healthy coral from the lagoon. The moves made by the current Speaker, Likiep Senator Donald Capelle, have so far been the most promising in at least a decade, and there is widespread consensus that one of the major issues that such a Con-Con and referendum should address is that of the direct election of the president (MIJ, 17 May 2013). Since the RMI system of government is based on a Westminster parliamen- tary model, the president currently needs only 17 votes (including her or his own) to secure a majority from the 33-member chamber. Don't Talk to Us About Your Sinking Island: How the U.N. Security Council Takes a Pass on Global Warming. 2.43-minute video on The World Decrypted. http://www.slate.com/ articles/video/slate_v/2013/02/u_n_global _warming_why_the_united_nations_won _t_make_bold_proposals_on_climate.html [accessed 22 Feb 2013] US State Department. 2013.

New Zealand has very longstanding links with the United States, but the closest interaction occurred during the Pacific War of 1941-45. For two years New Zealand was host to up to 45,000 American servicemen and women. Units of all three New Zealand armed services fought in the Solomon Islands under American command. The friendship forged in those years continues to grow. It is based on a common set of interests and common set of values. We have a vigorous dialogue, and the basis for a strategic partnership has been laid in the Wellington Declaration. Our co-operation has been especially fruitful in the Pacific, with participation in a range of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief activities.

/ The impacts of global warming are among the more serious environmental threats for the Pacific Island countries. These nations justifiably argue that developed countries should give immediate priority to the implementation of climate change mitigation policies because of the severe nature of potential greenhouse impacts for the Pacific Islands. Another immediate priority acknowledged by these nations is the need for development of adaptation policies that plan for adjustment or adaptation, where possible, to the foreshadowed impacts of climate change. This article does not focus on adaptation or mitigation policy directly but on an allied opportunity that exists for the Pacific Islands via the auspices of the Climate Convention, because the existing very costly energy systems used in the Pacific Island region are fossil-fuel dependent. It is argued here that efforts can be made towards the development of energy systems that are ecologically sustainable because Pacific Island nations are eligible to receive assistance to introduce renewable energy technology and pursue energy conservation via implementation mechanisms of the Climate Convention and, in particular, through transfer of technology and via joint implementation. It is contended that assistance in the form of finance, technology, and human resource development from developed countries and international organizations would provide sustainable benefits in improving the local Pacific Island environments. It is also emphasized that mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions is not the responsibility of the Pacific Islands as they contribute very little on a per capita global scale and a tiny proportion of total global greenhouse gas emissions.KEY WORDS: Pacific Islands; Climate change; Renewable energy; Framework Convention on Climate Change.