Research into climate change
Research overview
Researchers at the University of Melbourne are working to understand how the climate is Oceania is changing, and how islands, cities, people and villages can adapt to avoid climate impacts.
See also the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Melbourne Climate Action Scholarships and Melbourne Climate Futures
Projects we're involved with
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This project aims to create new knowledge about successful adaptation to climate change on low-lying islands. There is a poor understanding of how communities in low-lying islands can adapt to climate change. This project seeks to provide evidence about adaptation practices to sustain island communities through a changing climate.
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This project aims to advance understanding of the impacts of sea-level rise and associated policy responses on the everyday lives of island communities. Focusing on village relocation in Fiji and fortification and land reclamation in the Maldives, the project will analyse people's changing everyday experiences and practices.
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This project aims to investigate the potential for diverse forms of human mobility, particularly relocation and migration, with climate change adaptation across the Pacific Islands region.
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Our partners
Our people
Autumn Bordner
Bateteba Aselu
Prof Celia McMichael
Dorothy Foliaki
Dylan Asafo
Jason Titifanue
Prof Jon Barnett
Juliette Hakwa
Name: Juliette Kweviradurutano Hakwa Graduate Researcher E-mail: juliette.hakwa@student.unimelb.edu.au
Lau Dr. Viliamu Iese (Vili)
Dr Sergio Jarillo de la Torre
Tearinaki Tanielu
Recent publications
Our researchers contribute to a large range of publicly-accessible publications.
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Asafo, D., 2021. The Racism in Climate Change Law: Critiquing the Law on Climate Change-Related Displacement with Critical Race Theory. Berkeley J. Int'l L., 39, p.249. Link
Baker, C.M., Campbell, P.T., Chades, I., Dean, A.J., Hester, S.M., Holden, M.H., McCaw, J.M., McVernon, J., Moss, R., Shearer, F.M. and Possingham, H.P., 2022. From climate change to pandemics: decision science can help scientists have impact. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 10. Link
Barnett, J., Farbotko, C., Kitara, T. and Aselu, B. 2025. Migration as adaptation? The Falepili Union between Australia and Tuvalu. WIRES Climate Change. Link
Barnett, J., Jarillo, S., Swearer, S.E., Lovelock, C.E., Pomeroy, A., Konlechner, T., Waters, E., Morris, R.L. and Lowe, R., 2022. Nature-based solutions for atoll habitability. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 377(1854), p.20210124. Link
Bird, Z., Iese, V., Des Combes, H.J., Wairiu, M. and Yuen, L.B., 2022. Assessing the impacts of climate change on domestic crop production: Experience and perception of local farmers in North Malaita, Solomon Islands. Link
Bird, Z., Wairiu, M., Combes, H.J.D. and Iese, V., 2021. Religious and cultural-spiritual attributions of climate-driven changes on food production: a case study from North Malaita, Solomon Islands. Beyond Belief: Opportunities for Faith-Engaged Approaches to Climate-Change Adaptation in the Pacific Islands, pp.39-56. Link
Bordner, A., Barnett, J. and Waters, E. 2023. The Human Right to Climate Adaptation. npj Climate Action 2, 43: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-023-00079-w
Bordner, A.S., Ferguson, C.E. and Ortolano, L., 2020. Colonial dynamics limit climate adaptation in Oceania: Perspectives from the Marshall Islands. Global Environmental Change, 61, p.102054. Link
Brown, J.R., Lengaigne, M., Lintner, B.R., Widlansky, M.J., van Der Wiel, K., Dutheil, C., Linsley, B.K., Matthews, A.J. and Renwick, J., 2020. South Pacific Convergence Zone dynamics, variability and impacts in a changing climate. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 1(10), pp.530-543. Link
Cai, W., Santoso, A., Collins, M., Dewitte, B., Karamperidou, C., Kug, J.S., Lengaigne, M., McPhaden, M.J., Stuecker, M.F., Taschetto, A.S. and Timmermann, A., 2021. Changing El Niño–Southern oscillation in a warming climate. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 2(9), pp.628-644. Link
Dun, O., Klocker, N., Farbotko, C. and McMichael, C., 2023. Climate change adaptation in agriculture: Learning from an international labour mobility programme in Australia and the Pacific Islands region. Environmental Science & Policy, 139, pp.250-273. Link
Farbotko, C., Boas, I., Dahm, R., Kitara, T., Lusama, T. and Tanielu, T., 2023. Reclaiming open climate adaptation futures. Nature Climate Change, 13(8), pp.750-751. Link
Frere, T., Mulalap, C.Y. and Tanielu, T., 2020. Climate change and challenges to self-determination: case studies from French Polynesia and the Republic of Kiribati. Yale Law J, 129, pp.648-673. Link
Gallo-Cajiao, E., Morrison, T.H. and Fuller, R.A., 2024. Agreements for conserving migratory shorebirds in the Asia–Pacific are better fit for addressing habitat loss than hunting. Ambio, pp.1-19. Link
Gibson, K.E., Barnett, J., Haslam, N. and Kaplan, I., 2020. The mental health impacts of climate change: Findings from a Pacific Island atoll nation. Journal of anxiety disorders, 73, p.102237. Link
Iese, V., Kiem, A.S., Mariner, A., Malsale, P., Tofaeono, T., Kirono, D.G., Round, V., Heady, C., Tigona, R., Veisa, F. and Posanau, K., 2021. Historical and future drought impacts in the Pacific islands and atolls. Climatic Change, 166(1-2), p.19. Link
Iese, V., Halavatau, S., N’Yeurt, A.D.R., Wairiu, M., Holland, E., Dean, A., Veisa, F., Patolo, S., Havea, R., Bosenaqali, S. and Navunicagi, O., 2020. Agriculture under a changing climate. Climate change and impacts in the Pacific, pp.323-357. Link
Jarillo, S. and Barnett, J. 2024. Migration, belonging and the sustainability of atoll islands through a changing climate. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(3): e2206190120. Link
Jarillo, S. and Barnett, J., 2022. Repositioning the (Is) land: climate change adaptation and the atoll assemblage. Antipode, 54(3), pp.848-872. Link
Jarillo, S. and Barnett, J., 2021. Contingent communality and community-based adaptation to climate change: Insights from a Pacific rural atoll. Journal of Rural Studies, 87, pp.137-145. Link.
Jarillo, S. & Crivelli, C. (2024). Perspectives on Indigenous Well-being and Climate Change Adaptation. WIREs Climate Change. Link
McEvoy, D., Tara, A., Vahanvati, M., Ho, S., Gordon, K., Trundle, A., Rachman, C. and Qomariyah, Y., 2023. Localized nature-based solutions for enhanced climate resilience and community wellbeing in urban informal settlements. Climate and Development, pp.1-13. Link
McMichael, C., Powell, T., Piggott-McKellar, A. E., & Yee, M., 2025. Climate change and the planned relocation of people: A longitudinal analysis of Vunidogoloa, Fiji. Ambio, 54(6), 1043–1056. Link
McMichael, C., Yee, M., Cornish, G., Lutu, A., & McNamara, K. E., 2025. Adaptive capacity in Pacific Islands: Responding to coastal and climatic change in Nagigi village, Fiji. PLOS Climate, 4(7), e0000504. Link
McMichael, C., Schwerdtle, P.N. and Ayeb-Karlsson, S., 2023. Waiting for the wave, but missing the tide: Case studies of climate-related (im) mobility and health. Journal of Migration and Health, 7, p.100147. Link
McMichael, C. and Katonivualiku, M., 2020. Thick temporalities of planned relocation in Fiji. Geoforum, 108, pp.286-294. Link
Mortreux, C., Jarillo, S., Barnett, J. and Waters, E., 2023. Climate change and migration from atolls? No evidence yet. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 60, p.101234. Link
Narsey, S., Brown, J.R., Delage, F., Boschat, G., Grose, M., Colman, R. and Power, S., 2022. Storylines of South Pacific Convergence Zone changes in a warmer world. Journal of Climate, 35(20), pp.6549-6567. Link
Nunn, P.D., McLean, R., Dean, A., Fong, T., Iese, V., Katonivualiku, M., Klöck, C., Korovulavula, I., Kumar, R. and Tabe, T., 2020. Adaptation to climate change: contemporary challenges and perspectives. Climate change and impacts in the Pacific, pp.499-524. Link
Pascoe, S., Dressler, W. and Minnegal, M., 2021. Storytelling climate change–Causality and temporality in the REDD+ regime in Papua New Guinea. Geoforum, 124, pp.360-370. Link
Piggott-McKellar, A.E. and McMichael, C., 2021. The immobility-relocation continuum: Diverse responses to coastal change in a small island state. Environmental Science & Policy, 125, pp.105-115. Link
Thornton, F., McNamara, K., Dun, O., Farbotko, C., McMichael, C., Yee, M., Coelho, S., Westbury, T., James, S. and Namoumou, F., 2020. Multiple mobilities in Pacific Islands communities. Forced Migration Review, (64). Link
Titifanue, J., 2025. Justice washing extractivism: Pacific Island activist perspectives on just transitions and deep-sea mining. Global Environmental Change, 94, Article 103053. Link
Trundle, A., Ho, S., & Iese, V., 2025. Nauru national climate vulnerability assessment. The University of Melbourne. Link
Trundle, A., 2021. Climate resilience through sociocultural mobility: Reframing the Pacific’s urban informal settlements as critical adaptation pathways. Development Bulletin, p.70. Link
Trundle, A., 2020. Resilient cities in a Sea of Islands: Informality and climate change in the South Pacific. Cities, 97, p.102496. Link
Yee, M., Piggott-McKellar, A., McMichael, C., & McNamara, K. E., 2025. Framing locally led adaptation in a planned relocation in Fiji. Geoforum, 159, Article 104196. Link
Yee, M., McNamara, K.E., Piggott-McKellar, A.E. and McMichael, C., 2022. The role of Vanua in climate-related voluntary immobility in Fiji. Frontiers in Climate, 4. Link
Zapedowski, N.I. and Barnett, J. 2024. Following the Money: Climate Adaptation Finance in the Marshall Islands. Environmental Research Letters, 19(5). Link