Commentary on climate change as an emergency management threat multiplier for island communities.
Commentary on climate change as an emergency management threat multiplier for island communities. Free under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 — no registration required.
Summary of the paper
"Climate Security and Island Public Safety" is an ISPI commentary on how climate change is already reshaping public safety in Pacific and coastal island communities. It argues that climate change is a present operating condition, not a future risk, and that emergency management frameworks have not yet fully absorbed it.
The commentary points to relocation planning in Kiribati, high-tide flooding in Majuro and deteriorating coastal roads in Hawaii as signs that the change is under way.
What the paper finds
- More frequent emergencies. Storms, flooding, extreme heat and wildfire are triggering responses more often, shortening recovery windows and building fatigue in emergency management systems.
- Weaker evacuation routes. Sea level rise and storm surge are degrading coastal transportation infrastructure, reducing evacuation capacity just as evacuation-triggering events become more frequent.
- Displacement affects community safety. Communities facing inundation or loss of habitability are seeing social disruption tied to the stress of impending displacement and the departure of those who can leave.
- Heat and compound events. Extreme heat is increasing emergency medical and behavioral health demand, and overlapping hazards are producing compound events that single-hazard planning did not anticipate.
What it recommends
- Integrate climate-driven supply disruption projections into island emergency preparedness planning, with reserve and redundancy requirements adjusted for rising event frequency.
- Commission climate vulnerability assessments of Hawaii and Pacific Island public safety infrastructure that use compound event scenarios rather than single-hazard analysis.
- Fund climate adaptation for public safety infrastructure in line with documented risk trajectories rather than historical event frequencies.
Who it's for
Emergency managers, public safety and infrastructure planners, and climate adaptation officials in Hawaii and Pacific Island governments, along with regional bodies and funders.
This research connects to the 39 Small Island Developing States worldwide through the Samoa Pathway and BPOA+30 framework. Every ISPI research product carries a mandatory SIDS global bridge per the ISPI Research Architecture.
Cite as
Pulley, Warren (2026). Climate Security and Island Public Safety: How Climate Change Is Actively Reshaping Pacific and Coastal Island Communities (ISPI CM-06). Island Security Policy Institute, Honolulu. https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/cm06-climate-security https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23449912
BibTeX
@techreport{ispicm062026,
author = {Pulley, Warren},
title = {Climate Security and Island Public Safety: How Climate Change Is Actively Reshaping Pacific and Coastal Island Communities},
institution = {Island Security Policy Institute},
address = {Honolulu, HI},
number = {ISPI CM-06},
year = {2026},
url = {https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/cm06-climate-security},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23449912}
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