The leaders of the Pacific Islands are forging a united front against President Donald Trump’s climate denialism and leading the world in the battle against the climate crisis.

After Trump gave an  inflammatory speech at the United Nations last month in which he called global warming a “hoax” and dismissed climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated”, the leaders of the Pacific Islands responded by refuting his falsehoods, identifying the existential threats to their homelands and urging the international community to fulfil its legal obligations to act.

“The climate crisis is not up for debate,” Wesley Simina, president of the Federated States of Micronesia,  said in his speech. “The only question now is whether we as leaders will act with the urgency it demands.”

Jeremiah Manele, prime minister of Solomon Islands, urged the world not to be fooled by Trump’s lies. “Contrary to what we heard here a few days ago, the science on climate change is clear and my people are suffering from it,” Manele  said.

The Pacific Islands and the climate crisis

For decades, the  Pacific Islands have been on the frontlines of the climate crisis. From their position in the central Pacific Ocean, they have been facing some of the worst impacts of climate change, including rising sea levels and more destructive storms.

“Climate change remains the greatest existential threat to Samoa and other Pacific Small Island Developing States,” Toelupe Poumulinuku Onesemo, deputy prime minister of Samoa,  told the General Assembly.

In 2018, the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum announced in the  Boe Declaration that climate change is “the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security, and well-being of the peoples of the Pacific".

Although Westerners have long been dismissive of the Pacific Islands, often characterising them as tiny and insignificant countries, the islands have been critical to many of the world’s most important developments, including World War II, decolonisation and nuclear nonproliferation. Pacific Islanders have long prided themselves as being inhabitants of large ocean states who are responsible for protecting the world’s oceans and environment. They  represent multiple nations that range across a vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

“Though small in size, our island nations are large in purpose,” Manele said.

Pacific Islanders have exercised some of their greatest influence over the politics of climate change. Not only have they ensured that climate change remains a top priority at the United Nations, but they have also played a central........

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