Purpose While the South Pacific is often cited as highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, there is comparatively little known about how different groups perceive climate change. Understanding the gaps and differences between risk and perceived risk is a prerequisite to designing effective and sustainable adaptation strategies. Design/methodology/approach This research examined three key groups in Samoa, Fiji and Vanuatu: secondary school teachers, media personnel, and rural subsistence livelihood-based communities that live near or in conservation areas. This study deployed a dual methodology of participatory focus groups, paired with a national mobile phone based survey to gauge perceptions of climate change. This was the first time mobile technology had been used to gather perceptual data regarding the environment in the South Pacific. Findings The research findings highlighted a number of important differences and similarities in ways that these groups perceive climate change issues, solutions, personal vulnerability and comprehension of science among other factors. Practical implications These differences and similarities are neglected in large-scale top-down climate change adaptation strategies and have key implications for the design of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and therefore sustainable development in the region. Originality/value The research was innovative in terms of its methods, as well as its distillation of the perceptions of climate change from teachers, media and rural communities.

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