Deputy Prime Minister of Tonga officially opens PMC meeting in Nuku'alofa
10 September 2026. A decade after PMC last met in Tonga, the Council is charting the region’s climate services agenda for the next ten years, including a new Pacific Islands Meteorological Strategy (PIMS) through to 2036.
Officiating the opening, Hon. Dr. Viliami Uasike Lātū, Deputy Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Tonga warmly welcomed delegates, with a reminder that in the Pacific, that there is no community too small nor too remote to receive early warnings.
“We have faced destructive tropical cyclones, droughts, volcanic eruptions, tsunami and other hazards.
Deputy Prime Minister of Tonga delivering the keynote address
The eruption of Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai in January 2022, and the tsunami that followed, demonstrated with extraordinary force how quickly a hazard can cascade across the natural environment and across our societies.
It also reminded us that the atmosphere, ocean and solid Earth do not operate according to the institutional boundaries that we sometimes create.
A volcanic eruption became an atmospheric event, an ocean event, a tsunami emergency, a communications crisis and a national disaster.
This is why the Pacific must continue moving towards a genuinely multi-hazard, Earth-system approach to early warning.”
PMC-8 runs from 10–14 September, followed by the Fourth Pacific Ministerial Meeting on Meteorology (PMMM-4) on 16 September in Nuku'alofa, Tonga.
- SPREP
