Confronting the Climate Change Crisis

The artwork on our cover is from a small portion of a piece by ʻŌiwi artist Imaikalani Kalahele called “Looking for Answers.” The complete piece uses multiple canvas panels to depict a future Hawaiʻi ravaged by climate change but also includes images of guiding aumakua (family gods) suggesting that Kānaka ʻŌiwi will be the ones to find the solutions to Hawaiʻiʻs environmental plight.

Finding solutions through Indigenous values and ʻike kūpuna

The effects of climate change are not coming – they have already arrived – and unless humanity collectively takes action quickly, our challenges are only beginning. In these photos, a house on Oʻahuʻs North Shore has collapsed, while Honoapiʻilani Highway on Maui experiences flooding. The situation is dire but not hopeless – and many ʻŌiwi are looking inward to our cultural values and ʻike kūpuna for solutions. – Photos: Department of Land and Natural Resources

When floodwaters swallowed parts of Kalākaua Avenue in Waikīkī during a King Tide and Kona Low storm in 2021, many residents were reminded that climate change isn’t just about melting ice caps. It’s happening across Hawaiʻi – on our streets, our shorelines, and our communities.

For Native Hawaiians, the impact cuts even deeper, affecting not only place, but identity.

“It’s not 100 years from now, it’s not 50 years from now, it’s right now,” said Dr. Kealoha Fox, deputy director of the Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency for the City and County of Honolulu.

The term “climate change” gained traction in the 1980s alongside growing concerns about global warming. Its primary driver: the burning of fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere and raise global temperatures.

Across the pae ʻāina, our communities are experiencing radical shifts from the changing climate, with more frequent and intense storms, coastal erosion, sea level rise, coral bleaching and the degradation of vital water resources.

Still, there is reason to be hopeful.

Increasingly, younger generations raised in the practice of ʻāina aloha are holding leaders accountable for policy decisions that increase atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Kānaka youth have inserted themselves into the conversations around climate change, not as activists but as advocates.

Nineteen-year-old Pāhonu Coleman from Waimānalo, Oʻahu, shared, “It’s being in touch with our ʻāina and being connected and aware of the state and the health of our ʻāina to understand that it’s changing, and it needs help.”

Coleman was one of the 13 youth plaintiffs in the 2022 landmark climate lawsuit Navahine F. v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation (HDOT). The lawsuit claimed that HDOT, through its establishment, operation, and maintenance, violated the Hawaiʻi State Constitution’s public trust doctrine and their right to a clean and healthful environment.

“The health of our ʻāina is directly connected to the health of kānaka,” Coleman added.

The youth plaintiffs ranged in age from 9 to 18 and represented communities across Hawaiʻi Island, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Maui, and Kauaʻi.

“Within our short lifetimes, we’ve seen beaches disappear. We’ve seen our communities change,” Coleman said.

He and others joined the case against the State of Hawaiʻi through a process of sharing their personal stories.

“I shared about my kaiāulu, my community, Waimānalo, and the efforts that we are doing to restore what we know was once a thriving ecosystem,” said Coleman.

Pāhonu is also the name of a fishpond in Waimānalo and Coleman is one of the leaders in its restoration. “Resource management and taking care of our natural resources is a big part of who I am,” he said, adding that climate change has shifted the approach to some practiced traditions such as gathering – there is less to gather, whether it be for food or for hula.

“Any decision made about ʻāina and our kaiāulu will affect the generations to come – there’s no doubt about it,” said Coleman. “And, it’s getting harder for young Hawaiians to see themselves in Hawaiʻi. It’s due to multiple things, right? Economically. But quite literally, our ʻāina is falling apart.”

Kalālapa Winter was the eldest among the plaintiffs.

Raised in Haʻena, Kauaʻi, and Haleʻiwa, Oʻahu, Winter said, “I’m so grateful to have grown up in communities that taught me caring for the land [should] be the number one thing in my life. So when I learned about the science of climate changing the land, I actively saw these things affecting my community.”

Fox was one of two Indigenous scientists who were expert witnesses for the plaintiffs. In that capacity, she spoke on climate change’s cultural implications and explained long-term impacts of the degradation of ʻāina.

“It was no surprise to us that they (the youth) were adamant, that they wanted to do something about it, that they didn’t just want to sit idle and watch these conditions change around them,” said Fox.

“They wanted to be a positive force for good and use this collective mana of ʻōpio to be able to really speak to the highest levels of power and say, ʻHey, you know what? We have these ideas. We don’t feel like you’re moving fast enough.’”

The State of Hawaiʻi initially spent nearly $3 million defending itself against the lawsuit, which included nearly $1 million in legal fees to an out-of-state law firm. The state requested an additional $2.25 million to continue the lawsuit before reaching a settlement.

When announcing the settlement in July 2024, HDOT Director Ed Sniffen stated, “Burying our heads in the sand and making it the next generation’s problem is not pono.”

Reflecting on the case, Winter said, “[The state] put us through three years of being treated like crap, just to not have to admit that they did anything wrong. We are so grateful that they decided to work with us and not against us.”

Fox said her understanding of the system was a key reason for joining the case.

“We felt like it was paramount to use our skills and our credentials and our expertise – that ʻknow how’ to navigate through these systems, whether it be the judicial system or the academic system – to make sure that we’re uplifting the voices and the legacies of our youth,” said Fox.

For decades, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Interim Dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology Dr. Charles “Chip” Fletcher has been sounding the alarm on the effects of climate change. He said the case showcased the youths’ courage and deep love for their communities and land.

“These young leaders are not just demanding climate justice for themselves – they are standing up for future generations and offering a model of kuleana that inspires us all,” Fletcher said.

As a result of the settlement, the state agreed to actionable steps that would put HDOT on a roadmap to decarbonize Hawaiʻi’s transportation system within the next 20 years. This includes a commitment to develop and use greenhouse gas emission measurements and reductions in vehicle miles traveled when HDOT develops ground transportation projects.

“Our case was a big win for every Indigenous person who hates the system but is also really determined to change things for our community,” said Winter. “There’s never been a case, at least in America, that’s had this many Indigenous kids who have the same perspective as us and had this big of a win.”

As the state works to invest in clean transportation infrastructures, climate change experts say what is equally critical are investments in Indigenous knowledge systems.

“It is strategic,” said Fletcher. “In Hawaiʻi, this means funding community-based resource management, supporting language and cultural revitalization, incorporating traditional ecological knowledge into policy, and co-developing research and adaptation strategies with Native Hawaiian practitioners.”

He explained that around the world, Indigenous communities steward 80% of the planet’s biodiversity on just a quarter of the land.

“Yet they remain underfunded, underrepresented, and [are] often actively displaced,” said Fletcher. “The wisdom embedded in their languages, farming methods, and spiritual practices holds essential knowledge for navigating the planetary crisis we now face.”

Honolulu County’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency was established in 2016 through a city charter amendment approved by voters. The office is tasked with tracking climate science and coordinating the county’s actions to prepare for impacts. As deputy director, Fox brings both scientific knowledge and Indigenous practices to her position.

“Every day it’s my job to bridge those worlds of what our conventional Western systems and science is telling us through quantifiable data,” said Fox, “and what our Indigenous knowledge systems are telling us through generations of traditions and practices and behaviors repeated in the same place over and over and over that show us that these conditions are changing.”

Sea level rise scenarios for Hawaiʻi from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-led inter-agency sea level rise report shows that Hawaiʻi is experiencing an accelerating trend.

The 2022 report projects the seas will rise as much in the next 30 years as it has over the last 100 years and that “Hawaiʻi and other tropical Pacific sites will experience sea level rise that is 16% to 20% higher than the global average.”

Although sea level rise projections stretch decades into the future, the impacts reach beyond the shoreline. For example, in areas like industrial Māpunapuna on Oʻahu, the King Tides regularly cause groundwater to rise and flood roadways.

Many urbanized coastal districts that were historically wetlands and fishponds now sit at or below the water table. Traditionally stewarded for their ecological richness and as sources of food and fresh water, these low-lying areas were developed over time, filled in with modern infrastructure. Today, these areas are increasingly vulnerable to inundation.

“In some of these neighborhoods, certain hazards will become much more intensified, and we will see this more frequently,” said Fox. “Across Oʻahu, for instance, we already are accounting for sea level rise, increased heat, increased drought and wildfire risk, flash flooding, and hurricanes. That’s a lot of environmental shocks and stressors for us to contend with.”

Fletcher and his team have modeled coastline projections for all counties, providing localized sea level rise data and risk assessments. County agencies are using this information to develop adaptation plans, including infrastructure relocation, based on a projected 3.2-foot sea level rise by 2100.

The County of Kauaʻi made a historic policy decision in 2022 that earned an award from the American Planning Association the following year. Called the Kauaʻi Sea Level Rise Constraint District Ordinance, it is a planning tool to guide development in areas that are vulnerable to future sea level rise impacts and flooding.

When signing the bill into law, Mayor Derek Kawakami stated, “This type of measure is something that we will not see the impacts of today or tomorrow, but they will be seen by our kids and our grandkids and for every generation that follows.”

Kauaʻi County Planning Director Kaʻāina Hull noted that sea level rise can be hard for people to grasp because “it’s such an incremental change.”

The reality of sea level rise becomes even more apparent when coupled with extreme weather.

“There are things like extreme tides and there are situations like extreme storms, which is just a whole other level. It’s not actually sea level rise, right? Like the rain bomb itself, the ocean played a huge part in that flood,” Hull said, referring to the massive flooding on Kauaʻi seven years ago.

In April 2018 a “rain bomb” poured 50 inches of rain on Kauaʻi communities in a span of 24 hours resulting in severe flooding on the island’s north side. Landslides cut off access to the communities of Hanalei, Wainiha and Haʻena, and repairs to the highway took more than a year.

“What essentially happened was you had water coming down, pumping into Hanalei Bay and storm surge occurring on the bay at the same time,” Hull explained. “So water moved down into the ocean, but it was the surge of the ocean back into Hanalei that really flooded the town out.”

From extreme storms to wildfires, the effects of climate change are devastating. Hull said he wants to see more information from the scientific community that provides modeling projections for precipitation events.

“That is clearly an additional effect of a changing climate,” he said. “You know, it’s sea level rise, it’s precipitation events, it’s hurricanes, and now it’s wildfires.”

Thoughts of devastation can be daunting. However, advocates believe every action counts.

Most powerful is practicing aloha ʻāina and building upon relationships that are ingrained in Indigenous and local knowledge.

“Small actions rooted in values, especially when done collectively, create ripples of change. You don’t have to do everything – but you can do something,” said Fletcher. “And that something matters.”

Austin Kino of Maunalua knows this all too well.

After sailing on Hōkūleʻa during the Polynesian Voyaging Society’s Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage as an apprentice navigator in 2015, Kino had a heightened awareness of global warming. He spent time in small communities extremely affected by climate change that no longer had access to places in their homelands due to rising tides.

“It started an interest in meeting people who were studying [climate change] and [who] showed us projections of what our home was going to look like. That got me the most scared,” said Kino.

Motivated to make a difference, he co-founded Huli, a nonprofit that immerses students in Maunalua’s land and sea to explore and learn about its natural resources.

“I started by trying to build the same love I have for the ocean in the next generation,” said Kino. “I figured no one will do anything unless they first have a love for that resource, that place. I try to simplify as much as I can and then partner with people who understand it from a scientific lens.”

Prior to sailing on Hōkūleʻa, Kino had volunteered for nonprofit Mālama Maunalua and interviewed prominent kūpuna fishermen from the area. They shared their observations that the fish population dwindled as the human population grew, and of the collapse of nearshore ecosystems in Maunalua Bay as “Hawaiʻi Kai” was developed.

“One thing the uncles always used to say is, ʻthese fish cannot talk,’” said Kino. “I remember they said, ‘you guys talk for them. You’ve got to understand and advocate for them.’”

Huli’s ocean-based advocacy for Maunalua is having an impact on the keiki who enroll in its programs, raising awareness of how every day actions affect the health of the ecosystem.

“I think they understand the simplest things – what I wash my car with and what I put on the grass, will affect what comes down to the ocean. So even just that was a huge connection point for us,” said Kino.

The State of Hawaiʻi is currently working on a Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP) and a Climate Action Pathway (CAP). Both incorporate Native Hawaiian cultural practices and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) as foundational elements.

“To return to aloha ʻāina is to reject extractive, profit-driven models that separate people from nature and instead re-center on relationality, responsibility, and regeneration,” said Fletcher. “This is not about nostalgia; it is about survival.”

Grounded in her own Native Hawaiian identity, Fox sees her role, alongside that of the ʻōpio, as facing climate challenges fearlessly, just as our kūpuna faced challenges in their own time.

“Aloha really has to be able to guide all of these opportunities for solutioning and recommendations and changes because there’s a myriad of them out there,” Fox said.

“What should we do in the face of climate change? No one is going to come up with those solutions for Native Hawaiians other than Native Hawaiians; solutions that will make the most sense for our lāhui’s future. I highly know that deep in my naʻau.”