Abstract
Straddling the equator, atolls in the Pacific region have long been regarded distant and exotic by the rest of the world, with their minimal population, low GDP, and distinctive cultural and geographic features. However, since global climate displacements became the centre of attention in the mass media in the early 2000s, the Pacific’s relatively high exposure to the effects of climate change has placed it at the centre of political debate and academic research on this subject.
In Kiribati, there has previously been a focus on mitigating the problem of climate displacement by encouraging intergovernmental policies which channel resources into labour migration, either to other developing countries in the Pacific or to more developed neighbours, particularly New Zealand and Australia. However, we recognise that this approach assumes a Eurocentric set of values based on the principles of human rights and free labour mobility and produces a number of negative outcomes. This paper offers a critical analysis specifically focused on New Zealand’s Pacific migration schemes and the current climate change policies of Kiribati. In it we argue that significant disadvantages occur for Pacific migrants to New Zealand (including I-Kiribati), including racial discrimination and poor social and economic outcomes compared to the general population. We also demonstrate that in situ climate resilience and adaptation have not been properly explored, and the issue of social and economic vulnerabilities has been insufficiently addressed. Therefore, we conclude that climate change mitigation through labour mobility should be considered only as a last resort. Options that are likely to generate better outcomes include a commitment on the part of developed countries to cut carbon emissions and offer assistance to strengthen the climate resilience of low-lying Pacific islands.
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- 1.
Looking at how the concept of climate justice first developed, it is evident that it is an extension of the concept of environmental justice. In the 1970s and 1980s, when the concept of environmental justice first emerged in the United States, it focussed on the NIMBY-ism (Not In My Back Yard), which associated racial/class discrimination and local environmental pollution. It is a concept that originated in the U.S. and thus its political development follows a logic inherent to Euro-/American-centric values.
- 2.
Institutional racism is understood as discrimination against minorities through unwitting beliefs, behaviours and stereotyping within a country’s education, justice and health systems. Structural racism refers to wider social and political disadvantages experienced by specific social groups, for example higher rates of poverty or death (Lander 2021).
- 3.
NZ society and its government administration tends to categorise all Pacific migrants as one single group although limited data is available for subdivisions inside that.
- 4.
Looking at its officially published data (New Zealand Ministry for the Environment 2021), New Zealand’s overall gross emissions follow a growing trend, despite the figures for gross emissions stabilising at around 80,000 kt per year since. Recent data shows no sign of a significant drop in its gross emissions. Even if we take into consideration the offset units of carbon emissions and only speak of its net emissions, the figures still waver between 50,000 kt and 55,000 kt per year for the last eight years. And surprisingly, between 2012 and 2019, the country’s net emissions are much higher when compared to the period between 2007 and 2010. (N.B. The data used in our analysis does not take into account the period after 2020, as the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, which took place in early 2020, has significantly affected the global economy and subsequently affected the rate of global greenhouse gases emissions.)
- 5.
New Zealand’s immigration points system awards points to potential skilled migrants based on their age, possession of desirable skills and qualifications, English proficiency, and any offer of skilled work, with additional points for work offers that require residency outside of Auckland, and having a partner who is also qualified, skilled, and proficient in English. There is no consideration given to country of origin or demographic factors like race (New Zealand Immigration 2021c).
- 6.
For readers unfamiliar with the cultural make-up of New Zealand, Pacific people form the fourth-largest cultural grouping, making up 8.1% of the population in 2018. Pakeha (white New Zealanders) are the most numerous at 70.2%, Maori (indigenous New Zealanders) are next at 16.5% and Asian New Zealanders follow at 15.1%. All other ethnicities together form just 2.7% of the total population (Stats NZ 2019).
- 7.
While 20% of Kiribati’s population are in formal employment, the other 80% combine subsistence (farming) activity with financial support from family, both local and overseas.
- 8.
In Kiribati the maneaba is a central meeting house which is the locus of village life and the basis of governance at both island and national level. Regular village meetings ensure that, in an atoll environment with limited resources, all members of the community have their needs met. Decisions are made, and authority applied, by consensus. The maneaba is based on the political concept that the community must be collectively responsible for its own management.
- 9.
This in turn disincentivises landlords from renting to Pacific families and makes finding permanent accommodation more difficult for this group.
- 10.
Chris Methmann and Angela Oels point out that recent discourses treat “climate-induced migration” as a rational strategy to adapt to unavoidable levels of climate change, such that the relocation of millions of people is considered acceptable. However, their work further criticises how this climate migration strategy is largely promoted by liberal governments in highly developed countries, which ultimately exercise their sovereign power and regulation through liberal biopower (Methmann and Oels 2015).
- 11.
We would also like to note that, as a result of the COVID pandemic, the NZ government has suspended the PAC scheme since early 2020 and imposed a number of restrictions on the RSE visa for Pacific applicants. Although these precautionary measures are perhaps necessary and have occurred in an exceptional time, the current situation also raises questions regarding the sustainability of the climate migration route as a long-term solution.
- 12.
According to UNDP’s Human Development Report, Kiribati’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita on average is $4,260 (2019 census) (UNDP Human Development Report 2021a). To put this figure into perspective, it is ten times lower than New Zealand’s GNI per capita, which is $40,799 (2019 census) (UNDP Human Development Report 2021b). The 2006 Kiribati Household Income and Expenditure Survey revealed relatively small contrasts, among the various groups of islands making up the country, in terms of annual per capita income, ranging from A$1,053 in the Southern Gilbert group to A$1,531 in Southern Tarawa where the capital is located. The survey also revealed that households in Kiribati spend more than they earn (are indebted), and that a large majority of the islanders are financially supported by the small minority with a regular income (United Nations Committee for Development Policy 2018).
- 13.
The Brundtland Report, also known as Our Common Future, is a document published in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). The report introduces the concept of “sustainable development” and sets out a global agenda for change. This has created a major shift in culture and policy. In the Brundtland Report, “sustainable development” is seen as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
- 14.
As Mary Robinson, the founder of the Mary Robinson Foundation- Climate Justice, firmly states in an interview, “Climate change is often framed as an environment issue… [and] primarily a technical issue, a scientific issue. Climate justice, with its foundations in human rights and development, takes a different approach. Climate justice makes climate change an issue about people” (Gearty 2014).
- 15.
Dipesh Chakrabarty, in his recent published book, highlights that it is inadequate to only seek answers to the problems of justice between humans and focus on human welfare (i.e., a strictly anthropocentric justice) if we attempt to resolve the anthropogenic climate change in our time (Chakrabarty 2021).
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Chang, Th., Collie, L. (2022). New Zealand’s Political Responses to Climate Change and Migration in the Pacific: A Perspective from the South. In: Alsford, N.J. (eds) Pacific Voices and Climate Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98460-1_4
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