01/01/2021

(AU) Australia Trails Pacific Nations In Fight Against Climate Change

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Walton

Author
Peter Walton is the CEO of Care Australia.
This is not normal. Such a statement might seem unsurprising in a year when our very definition of normal has been turned on its head.

But these words weren’t written about COVID-19. This was how Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama described the Category 5 cyclone that tore across the island nation earlier this month.

The full extent of Cyclone Yasa’s carnage is still being assessed, but thousands are reported to have lost their homes.

Tropical cyclone Yasa tore through Fiji on December 17. Credit: KKU The Fijian Artist/Twitter
Fiji is accustomed to cyclones, but in recent years, their strength has taken even the most seasoned observer by surprise.

Meanwhile, hurricanes in the Caribbean have been so common this year that the World Meteorological Organisation exhausted its list of names and resorted to using the Greek alphabet for only the second time.

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And of course there were Australia’s own bushfires last summer, which shocked the nation and the world with their unprecedented ferocity. 

In other words, climate-related disasters are increasingly breaking their own records, which is why — five years on from the Paris Agreement — it is heartening to see so many countries doubling down on their emissions reduction commitments.

Australia's major trading partners Japan and South Korea have committed to net-zero emissions by 2050, as has China by 2060. The UK, EU and New Zealand have also committed to the 2050 target, as has US president-elect Joe Biden.

The ferocity of last summer's bushfires shocked Australians.
In our Pacific neighbourhood, Tonga has become the latest country to release an updated plan for reducing emissions and adapting to climate risks. Despite its contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions being negligible, Tonga’s commitments include 70 per cent renewable energy by 2030 and planting one million trees by 2023.

Australia, however, is sticking with the unambitious goal of a 26 per cent-28 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2030. This is nowhere near enough.

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It's bad enough that Australia is not pulling its weight compared to other similarly wealthy countries with high consumption and per-capita emissions. But when we are shown up by the very nations that have the most to lose from climate change — despite being least to blame on many measures — it really gives pause for thought.

Climate change is already affecting us all, but the stakes are particularly high — existentially high — for Pacific Islands nations.

As Anote Tong, former president of the low-lying island nation of Kiribati, recently wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald, the current trajectory would lead to flooding so intense as to render his homeland uninhabitable.

Despite pressure from major trading parties and the community, Australia's federal government has defended its conservative emissions targets. Credit: James Brickwood
While the prospect of nations being wiped off the map by rising sea levels is the most commonly understood impact of climate change in the Pacific, it is by no means the only one. Nor do we have to look into the future to find examples.
Climate change is making super-storms terrifyingly frequent. Cyclone Yasa was the 16th Category 5 cyclone in the South Pacific since 2000 — a fourfold increase on the 20 years before, when there were only four such cyclones.

Forced into a perpetual state of picking up the pieces from one disaster after another, island nations’ resources are drained away from important tasks such as reducing poverty. As we’ve seen during the pandemic, it’s the most marginalised people hit hardest during a crisis, such as women and those on low incomes.
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This is not to say climate challenges are being taken lying down. Forced to innovate out of sheer necessity, people living on the frontlines of climate change can teach the world plenty.

But adapting to live with a problem is no substitution for stopping the problem at its source before it’s too late — which is where emissions reduction comes in.

For countries that have contributed so minimally to the problem, Pacific Island nations’ are doing more than their fair share of heavy lifting.

A child wades through sludge on the Island Republic of Kiribati, which often experiences inundation on high tides and is one of a number of low-lying nations exposed to the worst effects of rising waters due to climate change. Credit: James Alcock

The region is responsible for 0.03 per cent of global emissions. This is not just due to their small populations. Even on a per capita basis, Pacific Islanders are responsible for a fraction of the average Australian’s greenhouse gas emissions — 16.88 tonnes in 2018. By contrast, the average person in Fiji was responsible for 2.41 tonnes, Vanuatu 0.53 tonnes and low-lying Kiribati just 0.6 tonnes.

Yet Fiji was the first country to ratify the Paris Agreement, and the Marshall Islands was the first to adopt a net-zero-by-2050 target back in 2018, with the country’s then-president telling fellow leaders “if we can do it, so can you”.

Australia must help Pacific neighbours prepare for a world in which super-storms, floods, drought and other climate-related disasters become even more frequent and severe. Every dollar we spend on preparation will save lives and money over and over again into the future.

Importantly, a good neighbour recognises when they have been — and continue to be — complicit in the problem. Pacific nations have led the way on committing to net zero by 2050, and the world is following suit. It’s time we did too. 

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