By Cecilia Russell
BELÉM, Brazil, Dec 17 2025 – On the Pacific Islands, where the ocean horizon is both a lifeline and a warning, communities have long interpreted environmental change through traditional knowledge, lived experiences, stories, and practice. Their observations echo those across the Pacific region, where traditional knowledge remains central to understanding shifting environments and responsible stewardship.

This grounding shaped the early work of Coral Pasisi, Director of Climate Change and Sustainability at the Pacific Community (SPC)—the region’s scientific and technical organization—and it is these experiences, including those from her home country of Niue, that anchor her lived realities and values to her work across the Pacific.

She remembers the early years of her scientific career, going from village to village with a laminated satellite image stitched with the cadastral base of roads and buildings, a few colored pens in hand, asking communities to add what they remembered.

“In times of drought, where were your main water source and caves? What areas remain important to protect as traditional medicines gathering or food security? Where are the traditional sites of ‘tapu’ and graves? And please mark where you remember waves reaching in the big cyclones experienced as far back as you can remember,” says Pasisi, explaining that they used the information to add important information into the Geographic Information System (GIS) to help understand environmental change and inform development resource use management plans.

“So, in one database, you have traditional knowledge, lived experience, and modern science together as a tool for governments and communities to make decisions.  It also provided certainty for development and investments the villages were seeking to advance their sustainable development aspirations.”

Women gleaning for octopus as part of an SPC study aimed at building knowledge on ecology, biology and identification of the marine species. Credit: Stuart Campbell/SPC

In a region where most countries and territories are Indigenous-run, the knowledge held by those with generations of traditional wisdom is science—it’s just verified in a different way than modern science. It enhances formal scientific data, giving countries twice as much information to track change and calibrate understanding.

“SPC probably has the world’s most advanced fish monitoring systems in the Pacific region. But we can’t take that data alone because there are always going to be some gaps, so it’s important that community knowledge and experience are also factored in to informing the state of fisheries in the region,” Pasisi adds.

“Pacific People are great storytellers, especially fishing folks, as I am one! But when you document those stories, including old photos, you can stitch together a timeline of the sizes of fish that were caught at different periods, the species of fish, and what they ate, and all of a sudden, you have this incredible documented knowledge from traditional practitioners that you can combine with the modern science and information.”

“So traditional knowledge and practice is basically applied science that has been refined over the years. It is just verified in different ways,” she says.

But climate change is making it harder for Indigenous people to apply this knowledge and anticipate change and response, because much of that knowledge was “tied to predictable seasons and patterns of occurrence, but those are going a little crazy now with climate change. In the Pacific, this loss of predictability affects food systems, freshwater access and coastal safety across all 22 Pacific Island Countries and Territories.  It even affects our five metropolitan members, but they have built modern systems of early warning, remote sensing and disaster management that are calibrated to cope better with the rapidly changing environment we are now in.”

The destabilization of once-reliable environmental signals has strengthened the region’s insistence that global action must align with the scientific findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which show that surpassing 1.5°C dramatically increases risks to reefs, fisheries, health and entire island ecosystems and territories.

This science underpins why Pacific countries place such emphasis on strong climate agreements and multilateral cooperation and accountability. A hard-won Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) reinforced this, affirming that keeping warming below 1.5°C is not just a political aspiration but a legal obligation rooted in international law.

A fisherman in Tuvalu. Traditional wisdom helps inform the knowledge systems in the Pacific region. Credit: SPC

“I think the ICJ Advisory Opinion is going to continue to play a very significant role in influencing the outcomes of the COP that was held in Brazil and all COPs to come.  There is nothing like the clarification of existing law and responsibility to help stakeholders stay on the right side of the law.  Frankly, the consequences of not doing so present much greater risks than litigation.  The highest price is existentiality and our region is on the front lines of that.”

“It’s highly beneficial, and it just gives, I think, a level of authority to the positions that our countries have held for a long time but which are often shot down by the ambiguity of interpreting agreements and responsibilities to deliver on those.  The capacity constraints of Pacific SIDS mean they are often up against huge delegations from larger countries that come with lots of fancy people who bring fancy language in and make all these very fancy arguments about what is legal and what isn’t,” Pasisi adds.  “The ICJ AO levels the playing field somewhat in that we don’t all need to be lawyers to understand what our responsibilities are and what the consequences of inaction could be; the highest court in the world has now done that for us.”

Mary Nipisina working her peanut garden in Tanna, Vanuatu. Credit: SPC

“There are many developed and developing countries that believe that this is an important tool in the international toolkit of global responsibility to help steer the world in the right direction.”

Pacific youth have echoed this call. The entire United Nations family supported the call for the ICJ AO process, and, at COP30, Pacific leaders, officials, partners and youth highlighted its value in upholding critical planetary tipping points like the 1.5°C limit in global warming underpinned by the best available science of the IPCC, reminding the world that decisions today will shape the survival, culture and sovereignty of future generations.

Organic farmers in Vanuatu. Climate change. In the Pacific, this loss of climate predictability affects food systems, freshwater access and coastal safety. Credit: SPC

Climate finance was a major focus at COP30 as countries negotiated how to advance the implementation of the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance. The approval of the Belém “Mutirão” decision was a significant step, establishing a two-year work programme and recognizing the need to dramatically scale up climate finance.

For Pacific Small Island Developing States, however, the question is not only whether climate finance increases but also whether countries can actually access it. Many do not have the staffing, systems or financial structures required by major international funds. Without simplified and equitable access, Pasisi notes, increased pledges will not reach the places where they are most urgently needed.

These concerns were strongly voiced during the final plenary in Belém. Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change, Hon. Ralph Regenvanu, acknowledged the difficulties of the negotiations.

“We recognize that we did not get everything we wanted at this COP, but we also know that this is the nature of our processes, and we continue to move forward together in solidarity towards what science requires, what justice demands, and what our people deserve,” he said.

He reminded the world that current pledges do not keep warming below 1.5°C “as science and equity demand,” and that future negotiations and actions must address this gap honestly.

Looking ahead, COP31—co-hosted under the joint leadership of Australia—will include significant participation from Blue Pacific countries. A major pre-COP event is expected to take place within the region, focusing on the ocean, energy transition, and climate finance, amongst other things. The importance of capitalizing the Pacific Resilience Facility within the solutions of addressing the complex climate finance landscape of access for the region was spotlighted.

“In relation to the ocean, we really need people to understand the holistic value of that natural blue capital and infrastructure.  Whilst our  countries are on the front line of climate change, they are also holding the front line by protecting large swaths of intact marine ecosystems that play a huge role in planetary stability—from biodiversity to climate change,” Pasisi says.

“It seems very unjust that Pacific countries and territories on the front line cannot access the resources needed to respond to climate change and sustainably protect their large ocean real estate. So, informing that narrative from a Pacific lens is critical, showcasing not just the extreme manifestations of the impacts of climate change, but also the positivity and innovation that comes from there, this is what our region is very keen to showcase.”

And she says it is not just about this generation, but the “rights of future generations—it’s our children’s earth that we are  mortgaging right now.”

Her message echoes the wider Pacific call: climate action must be grounded in science, guided by justice, and shaped by the lived realities of Pacific communities. As seas rise, storms intensify and ecosystems shift, the combination of traditional knowledge, modern science and intergenerational leadership has become one of the Pacific’s strongest contributions to global climate diplomacy,  and one the world is increasingly recognizing as essential.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Excerpt:

We need people to understand the holistic value of that natural blue capital and infrastructure. Whilst our countries (in the Pacific) are on the front line of climate change, they are also holding the front line by protecting large swaths of intact marine ecosystems that play a huge role in planetary stability—from biodiversity to climate change. —Coral Pasisi, SPC’s Director of Climate Change and Sustainability

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Dec 17 2025 – Machines with no conscience are making split-second decisions about who lives and who dies. This isn’t dystopian fiction; it’s today’s reality. In Gaza, algorithms have generated kill lists of up to 37,000 targets.

Autonomous weapons are also being deployed in Ukraine and were on show at a recent military parade in China. States are racing to integrate them in their arsenals, convinced they’ll maintain control. If they’re wrong, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Unlike remotely piloted drones where a human operator pulls the trigger, autonomous weapons make lethal decisions. Once activated, they process sensor data – facial recognition, heat signatures, movement patterns — to identify pre-programmed target profiles and fire automatically when they find a match. They act with no hesitation, no moral reflection and no understanding of the value of human life.

Speed and lack of hesitation give autonomous systems the potential to escalate conflicts rapidly. And because they work on the basis of pattern recognition and statistical probabilities, they bring enormous potential for lethal mistakes.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has offered the first glimpse of AI-assisted genocide. The Israeli military has deployed multiple algorithmic targeting systems: it uses Lavender and The Gospel to identify suspected Hamas militants and generate lists of human targets and infrastructure to bomb, and Where’s Daddy to track targets to kill them when they’re home with their families. Israeli intelligence officials have acknowledged an error rate of around 10 per cent, but simply priced it in, deeming 15 to 20 civilian deaths acceptable for every junior militant the algorithm identifies and over 100 for commanders.

The depersonalisation of violence also creates an accountability void. When an algorithm kills the wrong person, who’s responsible? The programmer? The commanding officer? The politician who authorised deployment? Legal uncertainty is a built-in feature that shields perpetrators from consequences. As decisions about life and death are made by machines, the very idea of responsibility dissolves.

These concerns emerge within a broader context of alarm about AI’s impacts on civic space and human rights. As the technology becomes cheaper, it’s proliferating across domains, from battlefields to border control to policing operations. AI-powered facial recognition technologies are amplifying surveillance capabilities and undermining privacy rights. Biases embedded in algorithms perpetuate exclusion based on gender, race and other characteristics.

As the technology has developed, the international community has spent over a decade discussing autonomous weapons without producing a binding regulation. Since 2013, when states that have adopted the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons agreed to begin discussions, progress has been glacial. The Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems has met regularly since 2017, yet talks have been systematically stalled by major military powers — India, Israel, Russia and the USA — taking advantage of the requirement to reach consensus to systematically block regulation proposals. In September, 42 states delivered a joint statement affirming their readiness to move forward. It was a breakthrough after years of deadlock, but major holdouts maintain their opposition.

To circumvent this obstruction, the UN General Assembly has taken matters into its hands. In December 2023, it adopted Resolution 78/241, its first on autonomous weapons, with 152 states voting in favour. In December 2024, Resolution 79/62 mandated consultations among member states, held in New York in May 2025. These discussions explored ethical dilemmas, human rights implications, security threats and technological risks. The UN Secretary-General, the International Committee of the Red Cross and numerous civil society organisations have called for negotiations to conclude by 2026, given the rapid development of military AI.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a coalition of over 270 civil society groups from over 70 countries, has led the charge since 2012. Through sustained advocacy and research, the campaign has shaped the debate, advocating for a two-tier approach currently supported by over 120 states. This combines prohibitions on the most dangerous systems — those targeting humans directly, operating without meaningful human control, or whose effects can’t be adequately predicted — with strict regulations on all others. Those systems not banned would be permitted only under stringent restrictions requiring human oversight, predictability and clear accountability, including limits on types of targets, time and location restrictions, mandatory testing and requirements for human supervision with the ability to intervene.

If it’s to meet the deadline, the international community has just a year to conclude a treaty that a decade of talks has been unable to produce. With each passing month, autonomous weapons systems become more sophisticated, more widely deployed and more deeply embedded in military doctrine.

Once autonomous weapons are widespread and the idea that machines decide who lives and who dies becomes normalised, it will be much hard to impose regulations. States must urgently negotiate a treaty that prohibits autonomous weapons systems directly targeting humans or operating without meaningful human control and establishes clear accountability mechanisms for violations. The technology can’t be uninvented, but it can still be controlled.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact [email protected]

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By the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 17 2025 – Cyclones Ditwah and Senyar are indications of a shifting disaster riskscape, not anomalies. Both storms broke historical patterns: Ditwah tracked unusually south along Sri Lanka’s coast before looping into the Bay of Bengal, dumping over 375 mm of rain in 24 hours and triggering landslides.

Senyar, only the second cyclone ever recorded in the Strait of Malacca, intensified near the equator and stalled over Sumatra, worsening floods in Aceh and North Sumatra.

The rising human and economic toll

According to the ESCAP Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2025: Rising Heat, Rising Risk, the Asia-Pacific region is entering an era of cascading risks driven by intensifying heat and extreme weather with marine heatwaves and warmer sea surface temperatures fueling this new normal.

Historical low-risk zones like Sri Lanka’s central hills and Thailand’s southern strip are now climate-risk hotspots.

The report projects that in South and South-West Asia alone, average annual flood losses could increase from US$47 billion historically to 57 billion.

Across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam, the storms of late November 2025 caused more than 1,600 fatalities, left hundreds of people unaccounted for, and affected well over ten million people.

Widespread flooding and landslides displaced 1.2 million people, disrupted essential services and isolated numerous communities, underscoring the scale of the response required and the substantial economic fallout expected

The value of preparedness

While improved early warnings have reduced loss of life compared to past decades, these storms show that disasters are becoming more destructive. Yes, early warnings saved lives—impact-based forecasts triggered mass evacuations and community drills helped families reach safety. But thousands were still stranded.

Alerts arrived, yet on-the-ground implementation was unclear, and some evacuation routes were already flooded. In many cases, social media became the lifeline when official systems fell short.

The trend is clear: technology alone cannot save lives without trust and rehearsed responses. Warnings work only when people know what to do and feel confident acting.

The ESCAP multi-donor Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness shows that investing in preparedness pays off many times over. Its 2025–26 call for proposals offers countries a chance to strengthen coastal resilience, integrate science and technology and embed community-led action — before the next storm season tests our readiness.

The lessons we must learn

• Trusted local networks and well-equipped community-led preparedness efforts make alerts meaningful

Early warnings have their limits. In many areas, alerts were issued and hotlines opened, yet fast-rising floods left families stranded, relying on rescue teams and volunteers. These events show that mobility constraints and uneven household preparedness can limit action even when information is available.

Community-led initiatives, such as those championed following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, demonstrate how local knowledge and regular drills improve decision-making. Twenty years later, social cohesion has become a marker of resilience.

For example, the Bangladesh Cyclone Preparedness Programme (with 76,000 volunteers) has sharply reduced cyclone deaths by delivering house-to-house warnings and guiding evacuations.

• Urban growth without risk-informed planning magnifies disaster impacts

Ditwah and Senyar exposed how rapid urban growth without risk-informed planning magnifies disaster impacts. Colombo’s wetlands have shrunk by 40 per cent, while Hat Yai’s drainage was overwhelmed.

Many hard-hit towns in Sumatra were located in known landslide-risk zones, resulting in severe disruptions to hospitals, transport networks and local businesses.

When natural buffers disappear, rainfall that once drained slowly now floods cities within hours. Urban resilience depends on integrating risk into development planning by preserving wetlands, enforcing zoning and investing in drainage and flood defences.

Infrastructure alone is not enough; it must be designed for extremes. Cities that embed resilience into planning and protect natural systems are better positioned to withstand future storms and safeguard economic activity.

• Regional solidarity and shared solutions can save lives.

The Asia-Pacific region is faced with converging risks, with storms amplifying monsoonal hazards, cascading into mudslides and exacerbated by infrastructure weaknesses. Regional cooperation is no longer optional – it is the foundation for resilience in the most disaster-impacted region of the world.

November 2025 saw 8 countries (including Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand) activate the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, enabling rapid satellite imagery for emergency planning, proving the value of shared systems (see figure).

As floodwaters surged across the region, participants at the ESCAP Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction reaffirmed their commitment to regional early warning systems and anticipatory action – because hazards do not respect borders.

The Asia-Pacific region’s resilience depends on investing in people and preparedness cultures, regional solidarity, urban planning for extremes, protecting natural buffers and ensuring that last-mile guidance reaches every household.

Building generations and societies equipped to manage rising risks is the smartest investment for a safer future.

Source: ESCAP

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