17/08/2019

How Rising Sea Levels Erase Culture

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick Galvin

Of all the myriad, insidious impact of climate change, its corrosive effect on culture has received comparatively little attention.
But for the 1200 people living on the tiny, remote pacific island nation of Tokelau and the 10,000 or so Tokelauans in New Zealand and Australia, the climate crisis threatens not only their physical home but the very survival of their culture.
Te Molimau is a new production by Tokelauan-Samoan writer and actor Taofia Pelesasa. It is set in the year 2060, by which time it is estimated low-lying Tokelau will have disappeared entirely.
Director Emele Ugavule (left) with actors Lesina Ateli-Ugavule, Tommy Misa and Iya Ware. Credit: Dom Lorrimer
The play looks at the last hour of the nation through the eyes of the one remaining resident, a young woman called Vitolina.
"It imagines what it might look like for us Tokelauans to watch our island disappear because the rest of the world didn’t take action," says director Emele Ugavule.
As storms have worsened and seawater has encroached ever further onto the three atolls that make up Tokelau, residents have left in even greater numbers.
It imagines what it might look like for us Tokelauans to watch our island disappear because the rest of the world didn’t take action.
Director Emele Ugavule
Many have settled in New Zealand, where they have citizenship, while a significant proportion has moved to live around New South Wales' Mt Druitt area.
"That impacts our language and our culture," she says. "The current estimate is that only 30 per cent of Tokelauans living outside Tokelau speak our language fluently.
"Our understanding of how to care for the land and the ocean is embedded in our language.
"And our cultural practices like singing and dancing are embedded in our everyday life in the islands – how do we maintain that in a context where we have to make money to survive rather than grow fish or food to surive?"
Ugavule says the play is an important milsetone for her country.
"It’s a really big deal for us," she says. "We don’t know of any other work that has been about Tokelau ever."
And it is being staged at a particularly opportune time as leaders, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison, gather this week for the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu, where climate change will once again be top of the agenda.
Ugavule hopes the play will encourage empathy among the audience and maybe inspire some to take action.
"It’s a very emotional experience for everyone involved," she says. "The entire play is our lived experience and our families’ lived experience."

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Revealed: 'Fierce' Pacific Forum Meeting Almost Collapsed Over Climate Crisis

The Guardian - 

Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison came under fire from Tuvalu’s leader Enele Sopoaga
Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, speaks after the Pacific Islands Forum. He clashed with Tuvalu’s leader, Enele Sopoaga, over Australia’s climate policy in 12-hour talks on Thursday. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Critical talks at the Pacific Islands Forum almost collapsed twice amid “fierce” clashes between the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, and Tuvalu’s prime minister, Enele Sopoaga, over Australia’s “red lines” on climate change.
Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s foreign minister, who was part of the drafting committee of the forum communique and observed the leaders’ retreat, said there was heated discussion over the Australian delegation’s insistence on the removal of references to coal, setting a target of limiting global warming to below 1.5C and announcing a strategy for zero emissions by 2050.
He described the discussions as “frank, fierce at times, [with] very strong positions being held”.
“Negotiations almost broke down twice, [with leaders] saying ‘this is not going to happen, we’re not going to have a collective decision’,” he said. Leaders had to take a break from proceedings, which started about 9.30am local time and lasted for almost 12 hours.
“That’s why it took so long,” Regenvanu said. “When things break down, you know there’s a huge amount of frustration, luckily it didn’t break all the way down and the leaders were able to bring it back.”
Leaders had to cancel meetings and press conferences scheduled for the afternoon, as the retreat stretched through the afternoon and well into the night. An evening feast that was meant to mark the close of the forum, prepared by the community from one of Tuvalu’s atolls, complete with a traditional dance performance, began without the leaders.
The leaders of Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Zealand, Fiji and Samoa talk before the group photo at the Pacific Island Forum. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/EPA
Regenvanu said one compromise proposed to resolve the impasse was to declare a climate crisis for the Pacific island states, which do not include Australia, rather than for the whole region. Regenvanu said Australia had agreed to that “in total blindness to what’s happening in their own country”.
“On emissions reduction and dealing with your own climate, Australia is out there, they’re not with us,” he said. “Pretty much on everything else we’re on the same team, in terms of mitigation, adaptation, making sure there’s resourcing for all this, it’s only in terms of domestic emissions strategy that Australia is way out.”
Asked whether the breakdowns came because of Australia’s refusal to budge on its positions on climate change, Regenvanu said “that would not be an incorrect assumption”. He said it was mostly Sopoaga who took the fight to Australia.
Speaking on Friday morning at a joint press conference with Morrison, Sopoaga said he had told the Australian prime minister during the retreat: “‘You are concerned about saving your economies, your situation in Australia, I’m concerned about saving my people in Tuvalu and likewise other leaders of small island countries.’”
“That was the tone of the discussion,” Sopoaga said. “Please don’t expect that [Australia] comes and we bow down or that ... we were exchanging flarey language, not swearing, but of course you know, expressing the concerns of leaders and I was very happy with the exchange of ideas, it was frank. Prime minister Morrison, of course, stated his position and I stated my position and [that of] other leaders: we need to save these people.”
Sopoaga said the discussions were so passionate that the prime minister of Tonga cried at the retreat while talking about two young women who had presented to leaders on Monday about the impacts of the climate crisis.
“The leader of Tonga actually shed tears in front of the leaders for the passion about referring to the presentation of the two young warriors of climate change the other day,” said Sopoaga. “That was the atmosphere.”
Tuvalu’s prime minister, Enele Sopoaga, had heated discussions with Scott Morrison. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP 
Fiji’s prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, expressed unhappiness with the declarations on Thursday night. “We came together in a nation that risks disappearing to the seas, but, unfortunately we settled for the communique,” he said on Twitter. “Watered-down climate language has real consequences – like water-logged homes, schools, communities, and ancestral burial grounds.”
Despite the concessions to Australia throughout the communique and climate change statement, Sopoaga said he thought leaders had achieved “probably the best outcome given the context and circumstances”.
Regenvanu said that apart from the five red lines that “compromised” the documents, the resulting statement was a “stronger statement on climate change than the forum has ever made”.
“There was reference to 1.5 [degrees warming] throughout, reference to supporting the science of the IPCC report, supporting all the stuff the UN secretary general talked about, just transition away from fossil fuels, stopping inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.
“So most of the language that we wanted is in there and I think it’s a much stronger statement on climate change than the forum has ever made. That’s the positive,” he said.
“I think it’s a credit to [the leaders] what we ended up with something and that we all can live with it. We all can implement it, we all can own it, including Australia.”

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Pacific Leaders, Australia Agree To Disagree About Action On Climate Change

ABC News - Melissa Clarke

Mr Morrison said the views of smaller nations within the Pacific Islands Forum were not binding on the rest of the group. (AAP: Mick Tsikas)
Key points:
  • Australia expressed reservations about several sections, and New Zealand at least one
  • This means no country has fully committed to endorsing the Tuvalu Declaration
  • "I think we can say we should've done more work for our people," Tuvalu's Prime Minister said
Australia has stymied efforts by small island states to get Pacific-wide consensus on their declaration for stronger action on climate change.
Regional leaders, including Australia and New Zealand, held 12-hour talks in the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu for this year's Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), eventually reaching an agreement on a statement on climate change and a communique early this morning.
They could not reach agreement on the Tuvalu Declaration made by smaller Pacific countries, instead drafting a separate Kainaki II Declaration, with different terms on coal use and emissions reduction.
The finished communique comes with a qualification that means the leaders do not support all of the declaration from the smaller nations.
Earlier in the week, the Smaller Island States (SIS) group agreed to the Tuvalu Declaration, which acknowledges a climate change crisis, encourages countries to revise the emissions reductions targets and calls for a rapid phase out of coal use.
Introducing Tuvalu
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will arrive in Tuvalu, one of the smallest and least-visited nations on Earth, for the annual gathering of Pacific leaders, who have named climate change as their top issue.
They had hoped the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum, which includes Australia and New Zealand, would endorse it.
But Australia expressed reservations about several sections, and New Zealand at least one, so the final communique endorses the Smaller Island States "with qualifications".
That means no country has fully committed to endorsing the Tuvalu Declaration.
Speaking after the marathon leaders meeting, Mr Morrison said he wanted the SIS group to be able to express its views "freely" but that its statement was not binding on the rest of the forum.
"The Pacific Island Forum has its leaders meeting and it agrees to the things that it agrees. And then the Small Island States have their own forum that sit within that," he said.
"And it's not incumbent on the leaders' forum to have to run a ruler over that."

'The Prime Minister of Tonga actually cried'
Tuvalu's Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga made climate change the central focus of the meeting. (AAP: Mick Tsikas)
That disappointed the PIF chair, Tuvalu's Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga, who said as he left the meeting: "We tried our best".
Mr Sopoaga had invested significant time and energy in making climate change the central focus of the meeting, and pushed for the Tuvalu Declaration to be adopted by Australia, but was resigned to the alternative outcome.
Negotiations were heated, particularly between Mr Sopoaga and Mr Morrison.
Pacific pivot undermined
Australia is being warned its return to its Pacific neighbours after years of neglect risks being undermined by the Government's intransigence on the region's main threat: climate change.
"We expressed very strongly during our exchange, between me and Scott [Morrison], I said: 'You are concerned about saving your economy in Australia … I am concerned about saving my people in Tuvalu,'" Mr Sopoaga said.
"That was the tone of the discussion. Please don't expect that we come and bow down … we were exchanging flaring language — not swearing — but of course expressing the concerns of leaders."
"The Prime Minister of Tonga actually cried in the meeting … shed tears in front of the leaders, such is the passion."
The outcome falls short of what Mr Sopoaga and some other Pacific leaders had hoped.
"It was a negotiated outcome, I think it still contains some references to the (UN) Secretary-General's message to accelerate actions against climate change and it's a way forward," he said.
"I think we can say we should've done more work for our people."

How do the declarations differ on key issues?
Pacific leaders called on Australia to do more to make a faster transition away from coal-generated power. (Supplied)
Emissions reductions
  • Tuvalu Declaration
    "Encourage all countries to revise their nationally determined contributions so as to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
  • Kainaki II Declaration
    "Call for... all parties to the Paris Agreement to meet or exceed their nationally determined contributions."
Climate change and the ADF
Australia's Defence Department has spelled out clearly to a Senate inquiry that climate change will create "concurrency pressures" for the Defence Force as a rise in disaster relief operations continues.
Coal use
  • Tuvalu Declaration
    "We re-affirm the UN Secretary-General's call for an immediate global ban on the construction of new coal-fired power plants and coal mines and ... [call on them to] rapidly phase out their use of coal in the power sector."
  • Kainaki II Declaration
    "Invite all parties to the Paris Agreement to reflect" on the UN Secretary-General's remarks on "fossil fuel subsidies and just transition from fossil fuels."
    "[Call on] the members of the G7 and G20 to rapidly implement their commitment to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies."
Green climate fund
  • Tuvalu Declaration
    "We call for a prompt, ambitious and successful replenishment of the Green Climate Fund."
  • Kainaki II Declaration
    The international community "continues efforts towards" meeting international funding commitments, "including the replenishment of the Green Climate Fund."
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