Internationally, we are marking the 2025 Human Rights Day at a time of extraordinary retreat from human rights protection across the World. Every human right, every breach of human right and every advance in the protection of human rights must matter equally to us.

The frameworks for human rights protection are well established internationally reflecting the genesis of the international system in the horrors of the Second World War. Social, cultural, political, women’s, indigenous, children’s, and all fundamental human rights are well protected in international laws that have evolved since then.

What may seem like a paralysis in protection of fundamental human rights internationally today does not arise from the absence of protections in international law but from the fractures that characterise the international interstate system in a phase of severe disruption.

The significant advances in protection of human rights internationally arose from a rare postwar geopolitical consensus. That global consensus is dead.

Though the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have their origins in this context, it was not until 2008 that the UN made an explicit resolution on human rights and climate change stating that climate change posed a real and substantial threat to the full enjoyment of human rights.

The Pacific’s human rights story
When the Blue Pacific discusses human rights impacts of climate change, it is shaped by our lived realities. The fundamental right to life in the Pacific is persistently harmed by heat stress.

It is estimated that more than 1200 deaths annually are now attributed to heat stress.

The fundamental right to health is eroded by growing illnesses and diseases arising from rising temperatures. Across the Pacific, well in excess of 1000 deaths are already attributed to climate change related illnesses annually.

The fundamental right to water faces worsening pressures arising from sea water intrusion into ground water, more frequent and prolonged droughts and sewage contamination of water systems as a result of floodings.

The fundamental right to food is persistently harmed by rising surface and ocean temperatures and experienced through failed crops, subsistence farms destroyed by winds and rains, collapse of coral reef systems and with that oceanic foods.

Indigenous people’s rights are similarly persistently harmed as communities across Melanesia undertake climate change induced migration without corresponding transfer of land and other social and cultural rights.

In Tuvalu and atoll states these are likely to lead to more unsettling outcomes as their small and culturally compact communities get thinly dispersed across larger countries such as New Zealand, Australia and Fiji.

Policy choices are needed to respond to worsening human rights protection that are a consequence of climate change.

Climate change and human rights in Pacific education
The right to education is one of foundational rights in international law. Having access to continuous, safe and quality education is the foundation for the enjoyment of this right.

Every time a student misses school because the river that she crosses is flooded or at risk of flooding, that student is denied the full enjoyment of this right. Learning days lost are increasing in Fiji and Melanesia generally. This has lifelong consequences.

The more painful reality is that learning loss is felt so unevenly. It is often people in our poorest households who stay in most flood-prone areas.

In Fiji’s case it is also the case too many I-Taukei settlements/villages are in flood prone areas or in areas more likely to be cut off from school access roads and bridges.

The average day time surface temperatures has increased between 1-3 degrees Celsius across the Pacific within a space of four decades. It may be much higher in schools in urban areas. The safe classroom temperatures for children are 24-26 degrees Celsius at the upper end.

In many schools, classroom temperatures are well above 30C for days on end. The health impacts of prolonged exposure to these temperature are seen through general weaknesses, fainting, headaches and fatigue.

I know of no school that systematically monitors classroom temperatures. I have heard of schools closing down for a day or two when the risks of flooding are high. I have not heard of schools being closed when temperatures are in the mid-30s during periods of high humidity.

Quite shockingly, school building and major repairs are still being carried out in so many schools in exactly the same way as they were done 4-5 decades ago.

The human rights context in education is profoundly gendered. Some of these simply arise from the fact that decisions are made by male leaders.

When reconstruction of several schools in Vanua Levu happened a few years back, boys’ and girls’ hostels needed to be rebuilt following one of the recent cyclones.

The boys’ hostels were reconstructed within a year of two back-to-back cyclones. A 100 percent of the hostel boys were back in school.

The girl’s hostel took another year to be up and running. Only one girl returned to school from those who were resident in hostels during the cyclone year.

A whole generation of girls in the middle to high schools from one of the most disadvantages regions of our country and from some of the most economically disadvantaged communities had simply dropped out of school.

This is a story that repeats itself in so many ways each across the Pacific.

Health, human rights and climate change
As with education, universal access to the sufficient health care constitutes yet another core human right.

One of the worst and least understood aspects of the health and climate change interface in the Pacific is its impacts on mental health.

Following extreme weather events — mental health consequences linger for long periods and most intensely among young children. When winds pick up ever so slightly, many children in schools get frightened — scared — quietly reliving their trauma in full view of teachers who are poorly trained to understand what is happening.

But the health consequences of climate change are far broader. Influenza, dengue including in off seasons, leptospirosis are profoundly impacting our communities. Loss of concentration, performance and worsening learning outcomes are some of these harsh trendlines inside classrooms.

Growing food insecurity
The right to food is a core part of our global human rights architecture. A few years back I had the great pleasure of visiting several schools in Vanua Levu.

I have taught in Fiji’s high schools. I know what I am talking about in a deeply personal way. Nothing prepared me for this.

The numbers/percentages of children who came to schools without lunch was just shocking. Nearly a third of students in one the classes that I visited came to school without lunch that morning.

Rates of stunting rates of children in primary schools (in peri and urban areas) in Fiji can be as high as 10 percent. Stunting rates are much higher in PNG at nearly 50 percent — one of the highest in the world.

Nutritional deprivation leads to delayed cognitive development and over time harms performance. Damage from stunting has life long and intergenerational consequences.
How does climate change feature in this?

The most obvious one is that global warming impacts on our coral reef systems. There is a near collapse of oceanic foods across so many Pacific’s coastal communities.

Equally on the high lands of PNG, delayed precipitation, prolonged rains and droughts harm and overtime irreversibly erode food security. This has widespread consequences.

Food insecurity, gender violence and inter-community conflict are a growing part of the Blue Pacific’s climate story.

Human rights, climate change and cultural and political rights
Nowhere does climate change demonstrate the scale of its destructiveness as in our closest atoll state neighbour.

Tuvalu may be uninhabitable within 4-6 decades even with the adaptation measures underway. It is forced to contemplate the real prospects of near total loss of land. The state has taken protective measures by amending its constitution to preserve sovereignty under any scenario.

Fiji and fellow PIF members have undertaken to respect its sovereignty under any climate scenario.

Compared with PNG, Solomon Islands and Fiji where communities are being relocated, the human rights and climate story of Tuvalu is of a different order altogether. Land rights, cultural rights are rooted and grounded. They do not move when communities are relocated. Relocations are deeply disrespectful of all rights — including cultural, social rights.

It is indeed possible that its whole populations in time may come to be dispersed outside of Tuvalu — in Australia through the Falepili Treaty, in Fiji and in New Zealand. Small and dispersed communities will over time lose their language. They are over time likely to lose many elements of their Tuvaluan identity.

Indigenous and cultural rights are rooted to land and oceans in such deep ways. These rights are recognised as fundamental human rights internationally. Global warming and rising seas treat these rights with callous disregard.

From a 1.5 to 2.8C world
The Blue Pacific has to fight the battle of our lives to return the planet to a 1.5C pathway. No one will do this for us. All our economic forecasting today are based on 1.5C  temperature increase. But the reality is that we are on course for a 2.8C or perhaps even a post 3.0C world.

The consequences of a 3.0C future on human rights of people across the Pacific Islands are unimaginable. For a start, most of the existing infrastructure, school buildings , health centres, data centers are simply not built to withstand 450 km/h winds.

Most of the Pacific’s towns and settlements are coastal. Our entire tourism infrastructure is barely a few metres above sea level. In Melanesia alone there are more than 600 schools that need to be relocated and/or rebuilt.

Several hundred health centres need to be moved. These are estimates based on 1.5C — not twice that. The near total collapse of coastal fisheries is almost a foregone conclusion at anywhere above 2.0C. The silliest thing we can do as a region and as a people is to not prepare for a 3.0C world.

Shaping our story of hope
On the 2025 Human Rights Day, I have reflected on the broad and deep impacts on human rights that directly result from climate change. Ours is a story of hope.

On this day, then let me celebrate the extraordinary leadership shown by Pacific’s students who took the world to court — to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and won.

We owe such an extraordinary gratitude to Fiji’s Vishal Prasad, Cynthia Houniuhi, Solomon Yeo from Solomon Islands and that small group of university students at USP who decided to take on the world. We celebrate Vanuatu’s leadership on all our behalf. Collective action matters.

We make a difference as individuals. We make a difference as a people and as large ocean states. I urge that we deepen our shared understanding of the unfolding universe of elevated human rights vulnerabilities across the Pacific.

Sharing our stories, deepening our understanding of interlinkages between human rights and global warming and beginning honest conversations about things taboo are foundational starting points.

In universities, this may mean adding climate change and human rights legal studies so that graduates leave with a firmer understanding of the world they will enter into.

At medical schools, this means integrating climate change into how human health is studied and researched.

In social science schools, that means advancing our understanding of the rapid evolution of kinship, leadership and culture in traditional Fijian and Pacific societies in a climate changed context.

In communications and journalism programmes, this may mean preparing students to communicate climate crisis with humility, sensitivity and empathy.

As responsible employers, we may be able to lead by ensuring that human rights protection arising from climate change are as mainframed as is possible. Being able to provide the level of sociopsychological support to students and staff bearing the silent scars of slow onset or climate catastrophes would be another great start.

This may include, as well, the simplest of things such as allowing paid compassionate leave for staff to recover from climate change related extreme weather events. In the longer term, the employment laws of Pacific Island states will need to catch up.

I have advised many Pacific island countries to take a hard look at even their school calendar. Few schools measure class room temperatures today.

Our colonial legacy has shaped the school year. We today subject our students to their final examinations when the temperatures inside class rooms are the highest. We today pressure students to prepare for their exams in the months when the chances of catastrophic events are the highest and the chances of illness that are climate change induced are the highest.

A school calendar that is climate informed and that protects human rights in the education context is more likely to commence the school year in September (third term) and conclude exams by August (end of second term).

All of these things are within our gift. We do not need international conferences or even international assistance to do all of these as the changes needed are so simple and so basic.

Building blocs for advancing human rights in a climate changed world:

• First is that individual and communities need to know how their fundamental rights are impacted by climate change. This is a task for all of us — not governments alone.
• Across the region, so many laws and legislative frameworks need to be revised to reflect how climate change and human rights play out. How many hours should an agricultural worker or road construction worker be working when temperatures are higher than 1.5C.
• For employers and service providers, what are the human rights obligations in a climate changed context? What does the waiting room in a health care facility look like in a 1.5C temperature increase and in a 3.0 degree world? They surely cannot be the same.
• National human rights and legal settings need to pay systematic attention to human rights and climate change. This means ensuring that national human rights agencies and courts build up their capabilities to provide the necessary jurisprudence; and our citizens both supported and empowered to approach courts and relevant agencies.
• Internationally, the Pacific Island states including Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) are well advised to ramp up their presence internationally. The next decade must be the decade when the region pushes the boundaries of international law. The decade following that may just be too late.

A Pacific Pre-COP31
I am delighted to have been invited to deliver my remarks so soon after COP30 and well in time for reflections for Pacific’s preparations for Pre-COP31. This climate conference to be held in the Pacific next year will be a great opportunity to bring a consolidated understanding of how fundamental human rights are being harmed by runaway climate change.

Shape this well — together, respectfully and with humility. We can present our agenda for advancing human rights protection in the Pacific powerfully at this Pre-COP.

As a region, we need to begin to win the argument about climate change in the theatres of international public opinion. Lobbyists and interests groups — including much of the global mainstream media — so wedded to petro interests appear to be winning.

We need to tell our stories with clarity and with impact. We need to back that with strategic bargains in all our international relations. A Pre-COP in the Pacific gives us a real chance of doing so.

Thank you for marking the 2025 International Human Rights Day in this way.

This speech about climate change and human rights was delivered by Dr Satyendra Prasad, the climate lead at Abt Global and Fiji’s former ambassador to the United Nations, during the 2025 Human Rights Day on December 10 at the University of Fiji. It is republished from Wansolwara News as part of Asia Pacific Report’s collaboration with the University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Dr Satyendra Prasad

As Pacific’s leaders and civil society prepare for the United Nations Climate Conference in Brazil (COP30) next week, they also need to keep a line of sight to the subsequent Pacific’s COP31.

As they engage at COP30, they will have in their thoughts the painful and lonely journey ahead in Jamaica and across the Caribbean as they rebuild from Hurricane Melissa.

The Blue Pacific needs to build a well-lit pathway to land Pacific’s priorities at COP30 and COP31. The cross winds are heavy and the landing zone could not be hazier.

At the recent Pacific Islands Forum Meeting in Honiara, Pacific leaders called for accelerating implementation of programmes to respond to climate change. They said that finance and knowhow remained the binding constraints to this.

The Pacific’s leaders were unanimous that the world was failing the Pacific.

Climate-stressed infrastructure
Pacific leaders spoke about their infrastructure deficit. The region today needs well in excess of $500 million annually to maintain infrastructure in the face of rising seas and fiercer storms.

There are more than 1000 primary and secondary schools, dozens of health centres across coastal areas in Solomon Islands, PNG, Vanuatu and Fiji that need to be repaired rehabilitated or relocated.

The region needs an additional $300-500 million annually over a decade to build and climate proof critical infrastructure — airports, wharves, jetties, water and electricity and telecommunications.

The Blue Pacific’s infrastructure distress is a cocktail that poisons its human development progress. This has lethal consequences for our elderly, for children and the most vulnerable.

As a region has fallen short in convincing the international community that the region’s infrastructure distress is quintessentially a climate distress. This must change.

The constant cycle of catastrophe, recovery and debt are on autoplay repeat across the world’s most climate vulnerable region. The heart-braking images coming out of Jamaica and the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Melissa makes this same point.

The Blue Pacific as a region attracts a woefully insufficient share of existing climate finance. Less than 1.5 percent of the total climate finances reaches the world’s most climate vulnerable region today. This is unacceptable of course.

Is our planet headed for a 3.0C world?
At COP30, the world will see what the new climate commitments (NDCs) add up to. Our best estimates today suggest that the planet is headed for a 3.0C plus temperature rise. Anything above 1.5C will be catastrophic for the Blue Pacific.

Life across our coral reef systems will simply roast at 3.0C temperature increase. The regions food security will be harmed irreparably. This will have massive consequences for tourism dependent economies. Bleached reefs bleach tourism incomes.

The health consequences arising from climate change are set to worsen rapidly. As will the toll on children who will fall further behind in their learning as schools remain inaccessible for longer periods; or children spend long hours in hotter classrooms.

For Pacific’s women, the toll of runaway temperature increase will be heavy — on their health, on their livelihoods and on their security. It will be too heavy.

A deal for the Pacific at COP30
The world of climate change is becoming transactional. Short termism and deal making have become its norm.

As Pacific leaders, its civil society, its science community and its young engage at COP30 in Brazil, they are reminded that the Blue Pacific needs more than anything else, a settled outlook climate finance that will be available to the region. Finance must be foremostly predictable.

The region should not feel like it is playing a lottery — as is the case today. Tonga must know broadly how much climate finance will be available to it over the next five years and so must Papua New Guinea.

At Bele’m, the world will need to agree to a road map for how the climate financing short fall will be met. This is a must to restore trust in the global process.

The weight on the shoulders of host Brazil is extraordinarily heavy. Brazil is the home of the famous Rio Conference in 1992 where the small island states first succeeded in placing climate change, biodiversity loss on the global agenda.

The Small Islands States grouping is chaired by Palau. President Whipps Jnr will lead the islands to Brazil. He will no doubt remind the host that the world has failed the small states persistently since that moment of great hope at the Rio Conference in 1992.

Pace of climate finance
There are three principal reasons why climate finance must flow to the Pacific at speed.

First, is that most countries in our region have less than a decade to adapt. Farms and family gardens, small businesses, tourist resorts, villages and livelihoods need to adapt now to meet a climate changed world.

Second, if adaptation is pushed into the future because of woefully insufficient finances — the window to adapt will close.

As more sectors of our economy fall beyond rehabilitation, the costs of loss and damage will rise. Time is of the essence. And on top of that loss and damage remain poorly funded. This too must change.

The Pacific needs to do many things concurrently to build its resilience. Everything for the Blue Pacific rests on a decent outcome on financing.

The region needs to make its clearest argument that its share of climate finance must be ring-fenced. That its share of climate finance will remain available to the region even if demand is slow to take shape.

The Pacific’s rightful share of climate finance over the next decade is between 3-5 per cent of the total across all financing windows. This is fundamentally because based the adaptation window is so short in such a uniquely specific way.

This should mean that the Blue Pacific has access to a floor of US$1.5 billion annually through to 2035. This is very doable even if global currents are choppy.

TFFF and Brazil’s leadership
Brazil has already demonstrated that it can forge large financing arrangements through its leadership and creativity. It will launch the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) at COP. PNG’s Prime Minister has played an important role on this. We hope that forested Pacific states will be able to access this new facility to expand their conservation efforts with much higher returns to landowners.

Beyond Bele’m
COP30 in Brazil is an opportunity for the Pacific to begin to frame a larger consensus — well in time for COP31. It is my hope that Australia and Pacific’s leaders will have done enough to secure the hosting rights for COP31.

A ‘circuit-breaker’ COP31
Fiji’s former Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad and Australia’s Climate Minister Chris Bowen recently said that COP31 must be “a circuit breaker moment” for the Blue Pacific.

The reversals in our development story arising from the climate chaos have become too burdensome. Repeated recoveries means that every next recovery becomes that much harder.

Ask anyone in Jamaica and Caribbean today and you will hear this same message. Their finance ministers know too well that in no time they will be back at the mercy of international financial institutions to rebuild roads and bridges that have been washed away and water systems that have been destroyed by Hurricane Melissa.

Climate finance by its very nature therefore must involve deep changes to the architecture of international development and finance. The rich world is not yet ready to let go of privilege and power that it wields through an archaic financial international system.

But fundamental reform is a must. Fundamental reform is necessary if small states are to reclaim agency and begin to drive own destinies.

Future proofing our societies
The risks arising from climate change are so multi-faceted that economic, social and political stability cannot no longer be taken for granted.

Conflicts over land lost to rising seas, the strain on education, health and water infrastructure, deepening debt stress take their toll on institutions through which stability is maintained in our societies.

The Blue Pacific needs to work with this elevated risk of fragility and state failure. This reality must shape the Blue Pacific expectations from a Pacific COP.

Building on the excellent work underway in climate ministries in Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, PNG and across the region through the SPC, SPREP, OPOC, I have outlined what the Pacific’s expectations could be from a Pacific COP31.

COP31 must be about transformation and impact. The Blue Pacific’s leaders should seek a consensus that includes both the rich industrial World and large developing countries such as China and India in support of a Pacific Package at COP31.

A Pacific COP 31 package
The core elements of a Pacific package at COP31 are:

1. Ensuring that the Loss and Damage Fund has become fully operational with a pipeline of investment ready projects from across the Blue Pacific.
2. Securing the Pacific Regional Infrastructure Facility (PRIF) as a fully funded and disbursement ready financing facility with a pipeline of investment ready projects.
3. Securing ring-fenced climate finance allocations for the Blue Pacific at the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and across international financial institutions.
4. Securing support for Blue Pacific’s “lighthouse” multi-country (region wide) transformative programs to advance marine and terrestrial biodiversity protection and promote sustainability across the Blue Pacific Ocean.
5. A COP decision that is unambiguous on quality and speed of climate and ocean finance that will be available to small states for the remainder of the decade.
6. Securing sufficient resources that can flow directly to communities and families to rapidly rebuild their resilience following disasters and catastrophes including through insurance and social protection vehicles.
7. Ensuring that knowhow, resources and mechanisms for disaster risk reduction are in place, are fully operational and are sustainable.

An Ocean of Peace for a climate changed world
Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has championed the Blue Pacific as an Ocean of Peace. Its acceptance by Pacific leaders opens up opportunities for the region’s climate diplomacy.

The Pacific’s leaders accept that the Ocean of Peace anchors its stewardship of our marine environment to the highest principles of protection and conservation. An Ocean of Peace super-charges the Pacific’s efforts to take forward transboundary marine research and conservation, end plastic and harmful waste disposal, end harmful fisheries subsidies and decarbonise shipping.

It boosts the Pacific’s efforts to main-frame the ocean-climate nexus into the international climate change frameworks by the time a Pacific COP31 is convened.

A window of hope
Between COP30 and COP31 lies a rare window of hope. The Blue Pacific must leverage this.

Both a Brazilian and an Australian Presidency offer supportive back-to-back opportunities and spaces to take forward the regions desire to project a solid foundation of programs that are necessary to secure its future.

Uniquely the ball may be in the Pacific’s court on how successfully we can harness this rare opening in the international environment.

Dr Satyendra Prasad is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Fiji’s former ambassador to the UN. He is the Climate Lead for About Global. This article was first published by Wansolwara Online and is republished by Asia Pacific Report in partnership with USP Journalism.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz