Guam and Vanuatu: Different paths from environmental change to human insecurity
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Vanuatu's harmful colonial past initiated rapid (and often informal) urbanization and a self-reinforcing drive towards modern consumer lifestyles. This process contributed to its inhabitants' climate vulnerability by challenging the design of urban climate adaptation, incentivizing less healthy diets and motivating locals to engage in controversial temporary work schemes in which Vanuatu residents migrate to Australia or New Zealand to provide labor for the food industry before returning to their homeland.
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While economic development enables Guam's inhabitants to better cope with climate change, it has created new and complex pathways that translate environmental risks into human insecurity. Guam's economy is founded upon the presence of the U.S. military and tourists, yet both tourism and militarization have damaged the island's environment. Moreover, a study published in 2020 found Guam to bear "a disproportionate number of green criminal activity." Invasive species such as the Coconut Rhinoceros Beetles and the Browntree Snake have also arrived in the wake of development, causing extensive damage to the islands ecosystems. The latter invasion is likely responsible for the extinction of birdlife on Guam, rendering the island's forests eerily quiet and endangering their survival.
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These significant differences also holds three insights that matter far beyond the specific case studies of Pacific islands. First, it is insufficient to protect human security by addressing climate change without considering other processes of global environmental change. A second insight is that how environmental change impacts human security is fundamentally linked to local political and economic contexts. And, finally, any adaptation to environmental change will fail if political and economic circumstances are not addressed within that process.