The climate change policy integration challenge in French Polynesia, Central Pacific Ocean

Internal relocation as a relevant and feasible adaptation strategy in Rangiroa Atoll, French Polynesia

“…The first and strongest challenge relates to the political will of both national and local public authorities to put climate change on the agenda 62 , 63 and engage in transformational adaptation, here through an anticipatory resettlement strategy. In line with previous studies 65 , 66 , our findings show that both institutional actors and inhabitants do not consider climate change as a priority. The absence of a sense of urgency in the face of climate change impacts therefore acts as a major barrier to adaptation on Rangiroa and other Tuamotu atolls.…”

“…Fourth, the analysis of planning documents (Ref. 65 ) revealed that internal relocation is not included in the vision of climate adaptation of institutional actors. This aligns with recent findings that institutional actors from the Government of French Polynesia did not view climate change as a danger, nor as a priority, because they face much more urgent problems, such as unemployment or waste management, daily 62 , 63 .…”

“…The analysis of risk reduction and adaptation plans and legal tools, and in-depth discussions with local and national institutional actors in charge of risk management and adaptation 62 , 63 , 65 , allowed to assess (1) whether an adequate policy and a legal framework exist for making relocation decisions and supporting the development of resettlement schemes and the implementation of internal relocation projects; whether (2) human resources, (3) funding, and (4) land tenure tools, exist to support the implementation of internal relocation; and (5) whether internal relocation is included in the vision of climate adaptation of institutional actors.…”

“…During a national workshop which took place in March 2018, discussions with representatives of French Polynesia institutions involved in coastal risk management and climate adaptation and land use and urban planning provided information on (1) their views on coastal climate risks in French Polynesia, (2) the urgency to identify and implement responses, and (3) the potential role of a range of options, including internal relocation, to support adaptation in policy processes and on the ground 62 , 63 . The material derived from these discussions was supplemented by the results of a set of 42 semi-structured interviews conducted between mid-December 2018 and mid-February 2019 and dealing with the broader integration of climate change into coastal risk reduction policies 65 (see Supplementary Material 7 for details). Together, these sources of information allowed us to verify the existence of a policy and of dedicated tools aimed at supporting internal relocation.…”

“…Given that in French Polynesia, no policy document or framework is specifically dedicated to climate-related internal relocation, we considered a range of documents dealing with coastal risk and climate adaptation more broadly. These documents were selected based on our own experience of the French Polynesia context—most of us have been conducting research on this territory since 2013 in the framework of various research projects: RÉOMERS (2013–2016, French overseas territories’ resilience to climate and marine related hazards in the context of climate change), funded by the French Ministry of the Environment; STORISK (2016–2021, Small islands addressing climate change: towards storylines of risk and adaptation), funded by the French National Research Agency; and INSeaPTION (2018–2021, Integrating sea-level Projections in climate services for coastal adaptation), funded by the European Union—as well as on in-depth discussions with national stakeholders 63 , 65 . We built on the framing used in Terorotua et al 62 and Magnan et al 65 to consider a public policy document relevant for our study when it addresses, even indirectly, coastal risks to people, infrastructure and/or economic activities, and possibly responses to these risks.…”