Lethal Heating: 10/09/21

09/10/2021

(AU SMH) Pacific Nations Refuse To Be The Canary In The Climate Coal Mine

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick O'Malley

Pacific Island nations are tired of reiterating their people’s suffering and applauding their resilience in the face of climate change and will demand real action from developed nations at upcoming climate talks, Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has warned.

Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama addressing the United Nations in 2018. Credit: AP

“We refuse to be the proverbial canaries in the world’s coal mine, as we are so often called,” said Mr Bainimarama in an angry but poised speech at the forum hosted by Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project to discuss the November COP26 climate talks in Glasgow.

“We want more of ourselves than to be helpless songbirds whose demand serves as a warning to others.”

“We refuse to be the proverbial canaries in the world’s coal mine.”
Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama

He called on Pacific nations not to allow world leaders to “sneak in and out of Glasgow without making a single serious commitment.”

Paris Agreement

Strong climate targets make strong friendships, Fiji tells Australia

Mr Bainimarama said Pacific Island nations will demand that, at Glasgow, wealthier countries make good on the commitment they made during the Paris talks to extend to developing nations $US100 billion in finance annually for climate adaptation and mitigation; and to commit to emission cuts that keep the 1.5-degree warming target within reach.

“That is our expectation for every nation, Australia and New Zealand included,” said Mr Bainimarama, adding that the difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees was the difference between life and death for millions.

“Our actions will decide whether islands exist or are lost to the rising seas.”

Addressing the forum, the former United States vice-president Al Gore called on all nations, but specifically Australia, the US and New Zealand, to cut their emissions in half by 2030.

“The science tells us that the only way to keep the 1.5 degree target ... is if we cut global emissions in half by 2030,” he said.

Australia has committed to cuts of 26 to 28 per cent by 2030, the US to 50 per cent and New Zealand to 30 per cent.

Pacific Island nations have proved to be formidable negotiators at United Nations climate talks.

Their lobbying saw the world adopt the 1.5-degree target at the Paris talks after they formed a voting bloc with smaller nations of the Caribbean and Africa before winning the support of the European Union and eventually the United States.

Since the UN’s August report showing the accelerating pace of climate change, Mr Bainimarama’s language on the issue has become stronger.

“This crisis is ours to own and ours to solve,” he said after the report was published.

“By the time leaders come to Glasgow at COP26, it has to be with immediate and transformative action ... Come with commitments for serious cuts in emissions by 2030 – 50 per cent or more. Come with commitments to become net-zero before 2050. Do not come with excuses. That time is past.”

Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama calls on world leaders to adopt real action at November's Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. 2min 21sec

Samoan Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa described the Glasgow talks as the world’s “point of no return” on climate, and also called for concrete commitments on reductions and finance in line with the Paris accord during a second forum hosted by the Australia Institute on Wednesday.

In Australia, the cost of natural disasters is expected to climb from $38 billion on average each year to $73 billion per year by 2060 due to climate change, even if the world manages to rein in emissions, according to a new report by Deloitte Access Economics.

Under a high emissions scenario, in which the world would warm by 3 degrees above pre-industrial levels, that figure would climb to $94 billion.

Warming has already reached 1.1 degrees, and even if existing pledges were met the world is on track for around 2.7 degrees warming.

Links

(Reuters) Climate Change Set To Worsen Resource Degradation, Conflict, Report Says

Reuters - Isla Binnie

Clouds gather but produce no rain as cracks are seen in the dried up municipal dam in drought-stricken Graaff-Reinet, South Africa, November 14, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

MADRID - A vicious cycle linking the depletion of natural resources with violent conflict may have gone past the point of no return in parts of the world and is likely to be exacerbated by climate change, a report said on Thursday.

Food insecurity, lack of water and the impact of natural disasters, combined with high population growth, are stoking conflict and displacing people in vulnerable areas, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) think-tank said.

IEP uses data from the United Nations and other sources to predict the countries and regions most at risk in its "Ecological Threat Register".

Serge Stroobants, IEP director for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa said the report identified 30 "hotspot" countries - home to 1.26 billion people - as facing most risks.

This is based on three criteria relating to scarcity of resources, and five focusing on disasters including floods, droughts and rising temperatures.

"We don't even need climate change to see potential system collapse, just the impact of those eight ecological threats can lead to this - of course climate change is reinforcing it," Stroobants said.

Afghanistan gets the worst score on the report, which says its ongoing conflict has damaged its ability to cope with risks to water and food supplies, climate change, and alternating floods and droughts.

Conflict in turn leads to further resource degradation, according to the findings.

Six seminars including governments, military institutions and development groups last year returned the message that "it is unlikely that the international community will reverse the vicious cycles in some parts of the world", IEP said.

This is particularly the case in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, which has seen more and worsening conflicts over the last decade, it said.

"With tensions already escalating, it can only be expected that climate change will have an amplifying effect on many of these issues," the report said.

Links

(AU ABC) Conservation Council Takes Legal Action Against NSW Government Over Water Sharing Plan

ABC Broken Hill | Bill Ormonde

The NSW government is accused of failing to account for climate change impacts on water resources. (ABC News)

Key Points

The NSW Nature Conservation Council launches "world first" legal action against the state government and two ministers
The council wants climate change factored into future water management
A grazier in the state's far west hopes the case boosts public awareness of the water situation

A leading conservation body is taking extraordinary legal action over a NSW government water sharing plan, alleging the government and two individual ministers have breached the Water Management Act.

The NSW Nature Conservation Council is alleging the government's plan failed to adequately take into account the future impact of climate change on the state's water systems and, in particular, on border rivers.

They are challenging the validity of the Water Sharing Plan for the NSW Border Rivers Regulated River Water Source Order 2021, also known as the Border Rivers Water Sharing Plan (WSP).

In NSW, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is built around 58 individual WSPs.

The council is being represented by the Environmental Defenders Office, which filed the case in the Land and Environment Court of NSW.

Council chief executive Chris Gambian said the case was an international first.

"It's the world's first legal case challenging a catchment-wide water sharing plan," Mr Gambian said.

"We say that the NSW government, the Water Minister [Melinda Pavey] and the Environment Minister [Matt Kean] breached the Water Management Act when they made the water sharing plan for the border rivers."

In a statement, a spokesperson from NSW Water Minister Melinda Pavey's office said the state government was "currently considering the matters raised by the NCC in the proceedings but can't provide any specific comment as the matter is now before the court".

Murray-Darling Basin irrigators
look set to win in NSW rule changes

Irrigators in the Murray-Darling Basin look set to win rule changes that will, in some cases, give them a 400 per cent greater share of water — a move scientists and lawyers say may be unlawful.

Mr Gambian of the NSW Nature Conservation Council said he did not think climate change was being properly factored into water-sharing calculations and the results could heavily impact the environment.

"If we haven't adequately recognised how much water there's likely to be available in the future we're going to keep having a problem," he said.

"The fish kills are one good example.

"The Menindee Lakes thankfully have water, but 12 months ago it didn't … is another good example."

The Darling River at Menindee has suffered several mass fish kills. (Supplied: Rob Greggory)

It is a sentiment shared by Kallara Station grazier Justin McClure who believes a lack of communication between the north and south of the state also contributed to environmental crises such as the Menindee fish kills.

"At the moment these water-sharing plans only talk to the downstream plans when they're forced to," Mr McClure said.

"Ecological disasters like we've seen at Menindee over the last couple of years are just highlighting the issue."

He believes better communication between all parties must be addressed, as must the issue of climate change.

"Connectivity is the key. If climate change isn't taken into consideration and downstream communities aren't taken into consideration then the process is broken," he said.

The Darling River is currently in much better condition, flowing at Wilcannia. (ABC Broken Hill: Bill Ormonde)

Mr Gambian agreed.

"There is not enough water, there is over extraction and there is not management that is meeting the needs of the current circumstances," he said.

Mr McClure says he hopes that, at the very least, the legal action will raise public awareness of the water issue, especially in the state's cities where people are not adequately informed about some matters affecting other parts of the state.

"Raising public awareness is the key to getting us on the same playing field and same level as other communities," he said.

"We've all got a say in this argument, we've all got to live. All communities matter."

Links