Dr Chanrith Ngin
Honorary Academic, University of Auckland, New Zealand
By Dr Chanrith Ngin
Honorary Academic, University of Auckland, New Zealand
In September 2026, the United States and New Zealand pledged US$60 million to upgrade a port on Penrhyn, an atoll in the Cook Islands, which had been a U.S. military base during World War II. The project is officially dubbed a “friendly port” to support local transportation and maritime management, as well as counter-narcotics operations and efforts to combat illegal fishing. Yet U.S. Ambassador to the Cook Islands Jared Novelly stated that a future U.S. military or Coast Guard presence on the island is under negotiation. This prospective presence signals growing great-power competition in the Pacific amid a myriad of existing regional security agreements.
More than 60 agreements and initiatives, including infrastructure and equipment deals and involving the US, Australia, New Zealand, and China, currently support defense and security in Pacific countries. Often these pacts come with development assistance. In 2024, for example, the Joe Biden administration promised US$7 billion of financial support over 20 years to the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia in exchange for U.S. military access to their territories. But a serious question arises: is insecurity induced by geopolitics actually the top concern for Pacific peoples?
At the 2024 Pacific Islands Forum, Secretary General Baron Waqa made it clear that “geopolitical manoeuvring means nothing to Pacific peoples who have cyclones on the horizon [and] are focused on building resilience, peace and prosperity for our families, communities, nations and our region.” Extreme weather events are very real, and growing, concerns. However, it seems the West has come to the Pacific for China rather than climate change.
Climate change impact is beyond dispute in the Pacific Islands. Sea-level rise has accelerated coastal erosion and inundated low-lying atolls. Marine heatwaves have driven widespread coral reef bleaching. Ocean acidification has degraded marine habitats. Cyclones and storms have caused severe structural damage, flooding, and loss of life. These impacts have ruined agricultural crops and fisheries, causing food insecurity.
The need to fight climate change is thus both immense and immediate. Between 2022 and 2025, New Zealand allocated 50% of its NZ$1.3 billion grant-based climate finance to the Pacific Islands to support clean water, climate-smart agriculture, disaster preparedness, and plant biodiversity conservation. Australia delivered AU$1.3 billion in climate finance over 2020-2025, including AU$350 million for infrastructure, in the Pacific.
In 2022, the US likewise pledged US$130 million to target climate change consequences in the Pacific. But most assistance programmes have been scaled back as part of the overhaul of the USAID, since President Donald Trump returned to power in 2025. U.S. development programmes have remained active in the three ally Micronesian nations.
China has played a smaller role in climate finance in the Pacific, providing an annual contribution of US$200,000 to the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme since 1998. In 2025, China announced US$2 million for climate cooperation with Pacific Island countries and pledged to implement 100 community projects over three years to strengthen climate resilience by targeting clean energy, agriculture, fisheries, low-carbon infrastructure, and disaster preparedness.
Despite this support, the war on climate change in the Pacific is underfunded. A recent estimate indicates that Pacific countries annually receive only about NZ$964 million and face a funding gap of about NZ$6 billion per year. This shortfall is driven by rising adaptation costs, making them use constrained national budgets to cover climate-related damage and consequently pushing them further into debt.
The limited support suggests that while climate change and environmental security are the core existential threats for the Pacific, the superpowers focus on geopolitics. Defense and security might boost ‘hard power’, but geopolitics does not pose an imminent threat that is ruining people’s livelihoods and futures.
Put simply, a focus on Pacific peoples’ greatest security threat—climate change—would show genuine care. When people’s livelihoods are secure and their resilience is strengthened, the geopolitical rivals will win their hearts and minds. And that is when ‘soft power’ will prevail.
New Zealand has been a trusted partner in the Pacific and should continue providing the support most needed by people. It is a relief to hear that the National government’s mooted cuts to development aid should it win the election would at least spare the Pacific.
Dr Chanrith Ngin is an Honorary Academic at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He enjoys learning and writing about geopolitics and great-power competition in Asia and the Pacific. He was a Visiting Fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, where he wrote about China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Cambodia and Southeast Asia.
