HONIARA, Solomon Islands >> Fred Conning pulled up Google Earth on his phone and zoomed in on the coastline that had been the backdrop of his childhood in a small village in the Solomon Islands.

Here was the beach of white sands where he would splash about and while away the days. Here was the point along the shoreline where banana trees stood. Here was a sand dune.

Now, it’s all sea.

“For us on the coast, the indication that things are changing is obvious,” said Conning, a 55-year-old engineer who now lives in the capital, Honiara.

On the other side of town, a few miles down the dusty, traffic-choked main road, the threat of climate change was high on the agenda at the annual gathering of the leaders of 18 Pacific island nations and territories. They conferred on ideas about what coul

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