Climate justice through climate finance? Lessons from Oceania

Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are at the forefront of climate change and the movement for climate justice. However, in Western discourse, the PICs are often portrayed as small and isolated, which reinforces the idea that climate change impacts are primarily happening in places remote from wealthier nations. This, in turn, affects political relations and attitudes to climate action and justice. By contrast, Pacific world views focus on themes of genuine connection and kinship that are enduring and reciprocal, and more than simple political statements about ‘Pacific family’. Achieving climate justice in Oceania requires that we truly engage with Pacific understandings of family and connection. Here, we consider how these themes can be incorporated into carbon finance initiatives, which are key tools for achieving climate justice. In so doing, we examine how justice issues around carbon finance, including (1) accessibility and resources; (2) failure to understand ecological and social connections; and (3) loss of rights, privatisation, and enclosure of commons, could benefit from this approach. We conclude that learning from Pacific informed understandings of kin and connection would strengthen climate justice in Oceania and beyond, and enhance the tools employed to achieve it.