In Fiji, this cold season has dragged on too long. Rivers have fallen so low that they reveal small islands no one alive has seen. Dalo crops are stunted.
This is more than a bad season. It is a warning.
Our elders knew El Niño long before satellites and forecasting models. They read it in the winds, the rain, the sea and the behaviour of fish. But what is coming may be different in scale and speed. Forecasts have warned of a potentially severe El Niño, with a significant risk of persistence into early 2027 and some possibility of reaching “Super El Niño” intensity.
For small island states, this is not simply a weather event. It is an existential test.
The threats are interconnected. Across parts of the western Pasifika, drought could deepen, threatening crops, forests and livelihoods. Elsewhere, intense rainfall and flooding could destroy food crops and contaminate freshwater. A hunger gap can develop quickly.
Our vulnerability is amplified by dependence on imported food. When global prices rise, the shock reaches directly into Pasifika households. Inflation, malnutrition and water insecurity can follow.
In the southwest Pasifika, stronger tropical cyclones remain another risk. Warmer seas can intensify coral bleaching, damaging fisheries and weakening natural coastal protection. High fuel costs make emergency response and food distribution more expensive. Heat stress, infectious disease and waterborne illness can compound the damage.
This is how a climate event becomes a societal crisis.
Hawaiʻi’s experience of three hurricanes in the last three months should also remind us that geography does not protect us. The same ocean connects us. Climate systems do not respect national boundaries, and neither does vulnerability.
So what do we do?
We prepare—but intelligently, locally and collectively.
Early-warning systems must reach villages, not stop at capitals. Practical tools such as climate animations and community education can help people act before disaster: storing water, preserving food and securing homes and evacuation shelters.
Governments should pre-position emergency NFI supplies, strengthen water infrastructure, support desalination where appropriate and promote drought-resistant crops. Solar pumps and community renewable energy can reduce dependence on expensive imported fuel. Dedicated disaster funds and accessible insurance are not luxuries. They are instruments of resilience.
But this cannot be left to individual governments alone.
This is a collective Pasifika challenge, and the Pacific Islands Forum must step forward with regional leadership. The Forum should help turn national preparations into a genuinely regional response: coordinating early warnings, emergency supplies, food-security measures, technical expertise and contingency planning across our islands.
From Fiji and Sāmoa to Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati and Papua New Guinea, we should not merely respond separately to the same crisis. We should prepare together.
A Pasifika that shares knowledge, resources and capacity is better equipped to withstand shocks. And when we speak to the wider world about our vulnerabilities and needs, we should speak with the strength of one people and one ocean.
But preparation alone is not justice.
Pasifika island countries have contributed little to the accumulation of greenhouse gases that has produced today’s climate crisis, yet we face some of its most severe consequences. Adaptation finance must reach the communities that need it—not disappear into layers of consultants, administration and paperwork. Loss and damage must provide meaningful support rather than mechanisms that deepen already heavy debt burdens.
We are not merely victims of a changing climate. We are navigators.
Our ancestors crossed the world’s largest ocean without modern instruments. They survived by reading the sea, the sky, the winds and one another.
We can navigate this crisis too.
But courage alone is not enough. We need knowledge, resources, preparedness and regional leadership. And we need institutions capable of turning our shared vulnerability into shared action.
The riverbeds are speaking. The signs are before us.
The Pasifika Islands Forum must listen—and lead.
We should all listen now, not when the water is gone, the crops have failed and the storm is already at the door.
