As the world prepares for the 30th UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, the Pacific is sending a message rooted not in rhetoric, but in reality. Loss and Damage (L&D) the irreversible impacts of climate change is not a distant threat in this region. It is the tide rising beneath village homes, the lost ancestral graves, the silence of once-familiar winds, the fading of Indigenous Knowledge that once anchored entire societies.
In the lead-up to COP30, the Pacific Community (SPC) is bringing forward new research and lived testimonies that reveal what the world must finally confront: that not all losses can be rebuilt, and not all knowledge can be replaced.
In the language of global policy, L&D describes the harm caused by climate change that cannot be prevented through mitigation or adaptation.
But in the Pacific, it is not a technical category. It is lived experience.
Ms Coral Pasisi, Director of Climate Change and Sustainability at SPC said across the Pacific, communities are confronting the limits of adaptation where rebuilding infrastructure is possible, but restoring identity is not.