Dr George Carter

Senior Fellow and Dep Head of Department of Pacific Affairs, Director of ANU Pacific Institute

Salā Dr George Carter is the Head of the Department of Pacific Affairs, Director of the ANU Pacific Institute, and Cluster Lead on Climate Security and Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge at the Institute for Climate Change, Energy and Disaster – Senior Fellow at the at the Australian National University (ANU). In 2025 he was invited by the UN Secretary General to be a Leading Expert as part the of the fifteen member UN Independent Expert Group on the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI). His teaching and research examines the intersection of international politics and security with climate change and aerospace focusing on diplomacy, finance, gender, democracy, and traditional knowledge, and the power and authority of Pacific states and Small Island Developing States. His work is published in  published two books as co-author Sustaining Development in Small Islands: Climate Change, Geopolitical Security, and the Permissive Liberal Order (Cambridge University Press) and editor for Oceanic Diplomacy: reasserting indigenous diplomacy in contemporary Pacific (Canterbury University Press). Journal of Pacific History, Earth System Governance, Australian Journal of International Affairs, and npj Climate Action (Nature portfiolio) New Zealand International Review Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, and countless book chapters.

His work contributes to climate politics, foreign policy, multilateralism, Oceanic diplomacy, Pacific regionalism, geopolitics, and Indigenous philosophy and Pacific aerospace governance. He leads multiple trans and inter disciplinary research projects and supervises PhD and master research from Pacific and around the world all contributing to the advancement of Pacific focused knowledge in international politics. For more than a decade he has been invited Pacific governments, leaders and regional organisations to advise and support on various climate change ocean and space negotiations and forums.  He was part of the Presidential Scientific Council for UNFCCC COP29in Baku Azerbaijan, and a Fellow of the Australian Climate Cluncik.  Grounded in the principle of tautua (service), his work on research brokerage and science diplomacy supports Pacific communities, regional organisations, and climate, ocean and space negotiations. George holds the high chief title of Sala from Lea’uva’a Samoa and proudly serves his communities through education inspired by his Samoan, Tuvaluan, i Kiribati, Chinese, and British heritage.