The Paris Agreement, with all its shortcomings, has started a new chapter of global climate change governance and prioritized the demands from island and low-lying states more than before. Despite the lack of leadership at the inter-state level, resources are being mobilized and channeled to climate-vulnerable countries for adaptation, technology transfer, and resilience-building. If properly implemented, optimists suggest that climate assistance could be a “flagship opportunity” for many developing countries to upgrade their domestic energy structures and accelerate the sustainable development journey (Xu 2017).
In the context of global climate change, experts on the Melanesian region (and neighboring places with similar climate challenges) have recently published timely books (e.g., Cramb and McCarthy 2016; Jacka 2015; McDonnell et al. 2017; McElwee 2016; Tehan et al. 2017) that examine the socio-cultural intricacies, political disarray, and moral dilemmas that local communities continuously encounter and confront under the guise of...