Climate Change as an Existential Security Issue in PNG: From Concept to Coordinated Response

By Bernard Yegiora

Climate change is no longer a peripheral environmental concern for PNG. It is a structural threat to national stability, human security, and state legitimacy. Seminar 8 examined this shift through the lens of the Boe Declaration on Regional Security, which explicitly identifies climate change as the “single greatest threat” to Pacific peoples. The central policy challenge is not recognition—it is execution. PNG continues to treat climate change as a development issue when it must be operationalised within the national security framework.

Seminar 8 in session: unpacking climate change as an existential security threat to Papua New Guinea, with a focus on the Boe Declaration and the structural policy gaps in preparedness, coordination, and response.

The 2015 drought and frost crisis, which affected nearly two million people, remains a defining case. As highlighted by Thomas and Ezebilo, the scale of the crisis was not solely the result of climatic conditions, but of institutional weaknesses—poor preparedness, delayed response, and limited coordination. This transformed an environmental shock into a national security issue. The implication is direct: climate events expose the depth of state capacity. When the state cannot anticipate or respond effectively, public trust erodes and vulnerability increases.

At the sub-national level, disaster management systems remain underdeveloped. Provincial offices are often underfunded, understaffed, and heavily dependent on national intervention. This creates a reactive system, where responses are triggered only after crises escalate. From a security perspective, this undermines resilience and weakens the state’s ability to provide protection at the community level. It also contradicts the preventive logic embedded in the Boe Declaration, which emphasises preparedness and long-term resilience.

A further layer of complexity lies in the disconnect between national policy frameworks and local knowledge systems. Research by Pascoe et al. shows that many communities interpret climate change through relational and customary lenses, linking environmental disruption to broader social and cultural imbalances. These perspectives are often marginalised in top-down policy approaches such as REDD+, which privilege technical and scientific narratives. The result is a legitimacy gap. When communities feel excluded or blamed, compliance declines and social cohesion is weakened—creating secondary security risks.

Information asymmetry compounds these vulnerabilities. Farmers and rural communities often lack access to reliable climate data, early warning systems, and public awareness programs. This turns predictable risks into avoidable crises. Within a national security framework, access to information is not a development luxury—it is a strategic requirement. Strengthening communication systems, including radio networks, mobile platforms, and community-based dissemination, must therefore be prioritised as part of a broader resilience strategy.

Equally critical is the issue of inter-agency coordination. Climate and disaster management responsibilities are fragmented across multiple institutions with overlapping mandates. This leads to delays, inefficiencies, and unclear accountability during crisis response. The Boe Declaration calls for collective action, yet PNG’s governance structure remains siloed. Without a coherent whole-of-government approach, the state will continue to respond inconsistently to climate-related threats.

In Seminar 8, a preliminary whole-of-government coordination model was introduced to address this gap. The concept emphasised stronger integration between provincial-level information systems and national security institutions to improve early warning, situational awareness, and response coordination. However, this model is not presented as a final policy prescription. Rather, it serves as a conceptual starting point.

Further research is required to assess institutional feasibility, legal alignment, and operational design within the existing national framework. This includes examining how climate-related information currently flows between provinces and national agencies, identifying coordination bottlenecks, and evaluating the capacity of existing institutions to absorb enhanced functions. Only through such analysis can a robust and implementable model be developed.

The economic and strategic rationale for reform is clear. As Thomas and Ezebilo argue, long-term adaptation is significantly more cost-effective than repeated crisis response. PNG must therefore shift from a reactive posture to a proactive one—investing in monitoring systems, training, and preparedness infrastructure. This transition should be guided by measurable indicators, including response times, coverage of early warning systems, and levels of community preparedness.

The broader conclusion is unambiguous. Climate change must be embedded within PNG’s national security architecture, not treated as an adjunct to development policy. This requires institutional reform, improved coordination, and a stronger integration of local knowledge into national strategies. The Boe Declaration provides the strategic mandate, but implementation remains the critical gap.

Seminar 8 has established the conceptual foundation. The next step is disciplined research to translate this foundation into a credible, evidence-based policy framework.