Torrent and tremors highlight need for Pacific resilience

Torrential rain and a sizeable earthquake may not have been Tongan organisers’ first choice of conditions for the launch of the Pacific Islands Forum summit.
The downpour led to flash flood warnings as the streets were flooded, while a magnitude-6.9 earthquake jolted Nuku’alofa around lunchtime, the ground juddering for what felt like minutes.
Yet the acts of nature helped illustrate why resilience is among the key themes of this year’s leaders’ meeting.
Natural disasters are a region-wide problem, and though Tonga experiences them less frequently than some of its Pacific neighbours, the country tends to experience “a high degree of economic and social shock during disaster years”, according to the World Bank.
Anticipating and preparing for potentially severe events as early as possible is therefore highly valuable to Tongan authorities – and that need for anticipation was at the heart of one local project unveiled by Foreign Minister Winston Peters and United Nations secretary-general António Guterres on Monday.
The new $4 million weather radar at Fua’amotu Airport, funded by New Zealand through the Weather Ready Pacific programme, will allow for early warnings of high-risk weather, scanning an average of 200km out but with a maximum range of 460km.
Laitia Fifita, the acting director of the Tonga Meteorological Service, said one of the challenges of weather forecasting in the Pacific was the difficulty that global weather models had in predicting small-scale events with nonetheless serious effects in the region.
Several years ago, a tornado wasn’t picked up by global models, an oversight that should no longer occur with the new radar.
Fifita said the addition of impact-based forecasting would also help Tonga’s economy, with the agriculture and aviation sectors among those who have suffered from uncertainty about weather patterns.
“Traditionally before, Air New Zealand didn’t want to land here in Tonga because we had no radar: in terms of severe weather today, Air New Zealand will not land because we cannot provide this weather service.”
Launching the radar was just the start of the process, Fifita warned, with ongoing maintenance critical.
Training support will come from MetService in New Zealand, which also helped with the construction process. MetService chief executive Stephen Hunt was hopeful the project could act as a blueprint for the wider Pacific.
“This could become a high-value, low-cost, impactful method of delivering this particular capability,” Hunt said, noting the project had gone from idea to execution in under a year.
That pace may be music to the ears of Tonga prime minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, who earlier in the day emphasised the need for action rather than words alone.
“People count on us to walk the talk – we cannot afford to lose their trust,” Hu’akavameiliku said at the summit opening ceremony, mentioning the need for resilience against natural disasters and climate change among the top priorities.
The forum’s secretary-general, Baron Waqa, said the Pacific was “at the forefront of a battle against climate change and its impact”, and was also grappling with heightened geopolitical interest and an evolving economic landscape.
“We need to integrate resilience as a matter of priority across all policy and implementation processes, most especially in sectors that relate to our people …
“Central to these considerations is ensuring that we are able to secure our place and our prosperity for our future generations.”
The region may be primarily made up of small island countries, Waqa said, “but as a blue Pacific continent we are a force to be reckoned with”.
Making remarks of his own, Guterres doubled down on his advocacy for climate and environmental action, declaring: “Humanity is treating the sea like a sewer.”
While Pacific states were showing how to protect the climate and the world’s oceans, Guterres said developed nations such as those in the G20 needed to phase out the production and consumption of fossil fuels.
“When governments sign new oil and gas licences, they are signing away our future.”
New Zealand may not be a G20 member, but the line could clearly apply to the Government’s plans to resume oil and gas exploration in the name of energy security; a matter of hours after the UN head’s remarks, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Energy Minister Simeon Brown reiterated the importance of searching for new oil and gas to tackle high energy prices.
Unsurprisingly, Peters was unwilling to concede Guterres’ critique may apply to the Government’s plans. 
“You’re not signing away your future if you’re going through a transition … there’s always been a recognition on this matter that there’s a transition period,” he said, arguing any alternative approach would lead to no less than “the end of civilisation as we know it”.
Of course, Guterres may argue the ongoing extraction of fossil fuels presents a genuinely existential threat, as may others in the Pacific – although Peters said other leaders understood the “timeline” for New Zealand’s emissions reduction efforts.
Yet with well-established links between climate change and the frequency and intensity of severe weather events, the perceived contradiction between the Government’s Pacific aid efforts and its domestic policies remains a live issue.
It wasn’t the only sensitive matter the foreign minister navigated on Monday, having met New Caledonia’s president, Louis Mapou, to discuss the French territory’s dispute with Paris and desire for self-determination.
New Zealand media were unable to ask Peters about the meeting because his daily press availability was (perhaps conveniently) moved forward, but the issue will remain a tricky one for Luxon when he arrives on Tuesday night.
Navigating the New Caledonia situation will require resilience of a different sort for Pacific leaders throughout the week.