Shangri-La Dialogue: Fiji says climate change, not conflict, is Asia’s biggest security threat

Last September, Fiji passed a sweeping climate change act which declared a climate emergency while setting out the legal framework for the nation’s response

The Pacific islands became a focus of regional tensions this year after China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands in April

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Fiji faces its biggest threat from “devastating climate change” rather than geopolitical tensions, the country’s defence minister Inia Batikoto Seruiratu warned Sunday at a high-level security summit in Singapore. Photo: AP

Published: 3:40pm, 12 Jun 2022Updated: 3:44pm, 12 Jun 2022

Fiji’s Defence Minister said on Sunday that climate change posed the biggest security threat in the Asia-Pacific region, a shift in tone at a defence summit that has been dominated by the war in Ukraine and disputes between China and the United States.

The low-lying Pacific islands, which include Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, are some of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the extreme weather events caused by climate change.

Fiji has been battered by a series of tropical cyclones in recent years, causing devastating flooding that has displaced thousands from their homes and hobbled the island’s economy.

“In our blue Pacific continent, machine guns, fighter jets, grey ships and green battalions are not our primary security concern,” Inia Seruiratu, Fiji’s Minister for Defence, said at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s top security meeting.

“The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change. It threatens our very hopes and dreams of prosperity.”

“Machine guns, fighter jets, ships … are not our primary security concern,” he told hundreds of delegates at the event in Singapore.

“The single greatest threat to our very existence is … human-induced, devastating climate change. It threatens our very hopes and dreams of prosperity.

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