26/11/2021

Stark Photos Show The State Of The Environment

Treehugger - Mary Jo DiLonardo

Winning images highlight impact of coastal erosion, forest fires, and drought.

Michele Lapini / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

A home in Italy is completely surrounded by water due to river flooding and melting snow. A child in Africa sleeps in a home destroyed by coastal erosion. Flocks of sheep search for grass in an area of never-ending cracked soil.

These are some of the winning images in the Environmental Photographer of the Year competition. In its 14th year, the contest features global environmental photography. The 2021 event received nearly 7,000 images from professional and amateur photographers from more than 119 nations.

Michele Lapini won the "Environments of the Future" award for the photo he shot above in Modena, Italy. "Flood" was taken in 2020 and is focused on a house submerged by flooding of the River Panaro in Italy's Po Valley due to heavy rainfall and melting snow.

Winners were announced at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow.

The competition was organized by Nikon, as well as Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), a U.K. charity dedicated to improving water and environmental management, and WaterBear, an on-demand streaming platform focused on environmental issues.

The voting for the People’s Choice Award is now open to the public via social media. To vote, hit "like" for your favorite.

Here's a look at some of the other winners, including the Environmental Photographer of the Year.

Environmental Photographer of the Year

Antonio Aragon Renuncio / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

The winning image, "The Rising Tide Sons," was shot in 2019 by Antonio Aragon Renuncio, a documentary photographer, originally from Spain who is living in Nicaragua and spending much of his working time in Africa.
A child sleeps inside his house destroyed by coastal erosion on Afiadenyigba beach. Sea levels in West African countries continue to rise and thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes.
“I am not very optimistic about the future of this child,” Renuncio says. “Although I hope that people's reaction to seeing this, and many other photographs, will be the preamble for this child, along with many others, to have a better chance at life than the one they have today.”

Young Environmental Photographer of the Year

Amaan Ali / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021 
"Inferno" was photographed in New Delhi in 2021 by Amaan Ali.
A boy fighting surface fires in a forest near his home in Yamuna Ghat, New Delhi, India. According to locals, forest fires caused by human activity in the area are a common occurrence due to adverse living conditions.

The Resilient Award

Ashraful Islam / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

"Survive for Alive" was taken by Ashraful Islam in 2021 in Noakhali, Bangladesh.
Flocks of sheep search for grass amongst the cracked soil. Extreme droughts in Bangladesh have created hardships for all living beings.

Sustainable Cities

Simone Tramonte / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

"Net-Zero Transition - Photobioreactor" was photographed by Simone Tramonte in Iceland in 2020.
A photobioreactor at Algalif’s facilities in Reykjanesbaer, Iceland, produces sustainable astaxanthin using clean geothermal energy. Iceland has shifted from fossil fuels to 100% of electricity and heat from renewable sources.

Climate Action

Kevin Ochieng Onyango / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

Kevin Ochieng Onyango shot "The Last Breath" in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2021.
A boy takes in air from the plant, with a sand storm brewing in the background. This is an impression of the changes to come.

Water and Security

Sandipani Chattopadhyay / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

The "Green Barrier" was photographed by Sandipani Chattopadhyay in India in 2021
Irregular monsoon seasons and droughts cause algal bloom on the Damodar river. Algal blooms prevent light from penetrating the surface and prevent oxygen absorbtion by the organisms beneath, impacting human health and habitats in the area.
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(Washington Post) Photos Show Vast Coral Spawning Event In Great Barrier Reef, Giving Divers Hope For Climate Change Recovery

Washington Post - Ellen Francis

Marine scientists recorded the coral spawning event in Australia's Great Barrier Reef. (Gabriel Guzman)
Divers and scientists recorded the birth of billions of coral babies in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on Tuesday night in a colorful show of life that they hope is a signal that the world’s biggest coral reef ecosystem can recover from climate change.

“It’s a sign of hope that it’s doing well, and we need to keep protecting it,” said marine biologist Gareth Phillips, who monitored the coral spawning event, which is when the corals breed over two to three days by casting sperm and eggs into the water once every year in the Pacific Ocean.

The fertilization off the coast of Cairns showed that the reef’s ecological functions were working even after facing pressures from climate change, according to Phillips, the principal marine biologist at the Reef Teach research center.

“I can only encourage anyone to come see the reef and what we’ve just been witnessing,” Phillips told The Washington Post on Wednesday. “It will change their life.”

Although the United Nations science and culture agency called this year for listing the World Heritage site as being “in danger,” noting serious concerns linked to climate change and water quality, its recommendation fell through after opposition from Australia. The issue will be revisited next year.

The coral spawning event happens once a year. (Gabriel Guzman)
The Great Barrier Reef has in the past been damaged by rising water temperatures that triggered coral bleaching so severe that it alarmed scientists.

When the water warms beyond a certain point, corals evict their food providers, the algae that they shelter in a symbiotic relationship.

The corals appear white after ejecting their colorful partners and ultimately can starve to death.

Mass coral bleachings triggered by rising sea surface temperatures killed 14 percent of the world’s coral between 2009 and 2018 — or what amounts to more than all the coral alive in Australia’s reefs — a study found last month.

The researchers warned that climate change would wipe out more coral as oceans continued warming without curbs to human emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. But, they said, the underwater ecosystems can bounce back with some respite.

That’s a main takeaway from the coral spawning event for Phillips, who worries that people may get the impression it is too late to save the Great Barrier Reef. “This event is a great showcase that it’s not too late,” he said. “It’s got its pressures, but this is why we need to act to look after it.”

Underwater video shows coral releasing sperm and eggs into the ocean on Nov. 23 at the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia. (Calypso Productions)
In popular travel destinations, nonprofit organizations and biologists have worked through the pandemic to restore reefs, and some of these experts, including in Australia, have called on tourists to help.

The coronavirus shutdowns that forced a pause in many industries also benefited some coral protection efforts — enough for one reef in Hawaii to show signs of regeneration.

The decline of global coral reefs, which are home to 25 percent of all marine animals and plants, also threatens people who rely on the reefs for food, jobs, protection from coastal flooding and billions of dollars a year in tourism spending.

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(AU Pearls and Irritations) Australia’s Bare-Minimum Emissions Plan Rates Zero All-Round

Pearls and Irritations - Ian Dunlop | Chris Barrie

Australia’s net zero plan is a techno-optimist thought-bubble: it has an inappropriate objective, no clear priorities, and no realistic costing.

(Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)
Authors
  • was formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive, chair of the Australian Coal Association and CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is a member of the Club of Rome and Chair, Advisory Board, Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration
  • is former chief of the Australian Defence Force. He is an executive committee member of the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group.
The Australian government’s Net Zero Emission by 2050 Plan (NZE2050), astonishingly and quite deliberately, ignores the impacts of climate change and the associated social and economic damage of acting too slowly.

Just before departing for the Glasgow climate summit the prime minister launched “Australia’s Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan; a whole-of-economy Plan to achieve NZE2050”; or “The Australian Way” as the summary version has it.

The modelling and analysis supporting the plan have just been released.

These documents were obviously finalised long before the government reached agreement with the National Party to adopt NZE2050 as policy. Hence the costs and implications of this agreement, which we are told are substantial, are presumably not included in the Plan.

Plans, to be meaningful, need objectives.

The stated objective of the plan is to achieve NZE2050 for Australia.

This is to be done via “technology not taxes”, with “expanded choice, not mandates”, without requiring “coal or gas production to shut down” or “the displacement of productive land”, with “no loss of jobs” or “any cost to the Australian community”.

The rationale for adopting the NZE2050 objective is unclear other than the implication that, as the world is decarbonising, Australia must react and NZE2050 had become the minimal acceptable response from a developed country.

However, the modelling documentation reveals, astonishingly, that the plan is purely an economic and technological forecast which “does not assess the costs or impacts of climate change or the benefits of avoided warming associated with different global emissions trajectories”.

So it ignores the primary reason for climate change action, namely to avoid potentially catastrophic impacts.

Yet in signing the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the government committed to do so by contributing to “holding the increase in global average temperatures to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5C”.

Unfortunately the science confirms it is now virtually impossible to stay below 1.5C, and probably below 2C.

The inadequacy of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP process — again demonstrated in Glasgow, not least because of Australian intransigence — means that the world is now faced with the imminent prospect of irreversible, self-sustaining warming.

Only extremely rapid emission reductions by 2030 will avoid this outcome; NZE2050 is far too late.

The first responsibility of the government should be the security and prosperity of the Australian people. The greatest threat to that security now is not China, Taiwan or the lack of submarines, but climate change.

The objective of any sensible plan to address climate change must start from an honest assessment of the climate risks and opportunities. That determines the target to be met and the plan to get there, as proposed in the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group “Missing in Action” report.

The government has never assessed those risks, deliberately ignoring the climate science.

Given the damage already inflicted on the Australian community, particularly in rural areas, with climate-related drought, bushfires, floods and storms, to ignore the massive increase in such impacts likely resulting from NZE2050 beggars belief.

Likewise it is irresponsible to pretend that there will be no cost to the community, not least because emergency action to reach net zero emissions as close to 2030 as possible will become inevitable as climate impacts escalate.

But the most dangerous aspect of the Plan is its assumption that Australia’s coal and gas industries can expand for decades to come, pouring fuel on the climate fire, until markets dictate otherwise, on the basis that emissions will be offset by technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and soil carbon, which have yet to be proven at scale.

CCS has worked in the oil and gas industry for decades, re-injecting CO2 produced during oil and gas extraction back into the reservoirs from which it came. But those reservoirs are limited, and rarely near the point of emission.

Injecting CO2 into non-oil and gas reservoirs has been attempted for years but proven far more problematic technically, as the WA Gorgon project demonstrates. Most major projects have failed, and CCS will not be available at the scale the plan implies.

Soil carbon works but takes time to become effective, time we no longer have; it is also unlikely to work at the scale required.

Concern has long been expressed over this “moral hazard” around climate change. In short, allowing expansion of fossil fuel use now on the grounds that yet-to-be proven technology will magically appear in the future to solve its emission problem; the danger being that catastrophic climate impacts will get locked in long before that technology eventuates.

That concern, voiced two decades ago, is even more critical today, given the accelerating impact of climate change and the fact that the world must achieve dramatic emission reductions in less than a decade.

For the government to put forward this plan in current circumstances is a complete abrogation of its responsibility to ensure the security of the Australian people, particularly younger generations.

This failure of imagination and leadership must stop and a real plan must be adopted, based on facts not deception.

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25/11/2021

(AU) From Rhetoric To Action – Academies Release Joint Statement On COP26

Australian Academy of Science


The presidents of Australia’s five learned academies have issued a joint statement on COP26 and Australia's path to net-zero emissions.

The statement promises the academies’ independent voice and convening power, which harnesses the collective expertise and resources of nearly 3,500 Fellows across the academies, to provide insights, solutions and knowledge.
[The presidents] recognise that our Academies’ collective expertise and leadership is critical to addressing the widespread and intergenerational impacts of climate change.
Photo:Gustavo Fring via Pexels.
From the statement

 “[The presidents] recognise that our Academies’ collective expertise and leadership is critical to addressing the widespread and intergenerational impacts of climate change.

"At COP26 in Glasgow, world leaders convened with a singular goal – to drive deep and rapid decarbonisation to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

"There is no realistic path to decarbonisation without ending fossil fuel use.

"In response, every sector in Australia must deliver on our commitments to reach the global goals stated in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“The challenges presented by climate change require smart, holistic and cross-disciplinary thinking. We need to continue developing and communicating research to challenge misinformation with robust evidence and steward an economy-wide transition to a low carbon future.

"Our academies will work to ensure our experts are at the forefront, providing advice to guide the most efficient, fair and cost-effective policy mechanisms that drive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and broader adaptation.

“Strategies will aim to exceed our emission reduction targets while effectively managing social, economic, health and environmental factors and empowering governments and industry to take action. We are also committed to substantially reducing the emissions of our own academy activities.”

Work underway

Learned academies and ACOLA are already undertaking valuable work towards net-zero, including:

The statement is signed by the presidents of Australia’s learned academies: Links
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(AU The Conversation) Climate Change Is Likely Driving A Drier Southern Australia – So Why Are We Having Such A Wet Year?

The Conversation - 

Shutterstock

Author
 is Climate projections scientist, CSIRO     
As the climate changes, southern Australia is likely to keep getting drier on average, particularly in the southwest.

However, this year has been wet. And yesterday the Bureau of Meteorology announced we are now in another La Niña event. This common large-scale climate pattern lasts for months, and will increase the odds of further wet weather across the country.

So despite the long-term trend towards drier conditions, we find ourselves in a wetter-than-usual period. What gives?

Current climate change assessments

 Rainfall has been declining in much of southern Australia in recent decades (see below). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment report – which draws on the latest climate research – found the recent drying trend in southern Australia is likely to continue, particularly during the cool season.

Cool-season rainfall in southwest Western Australia has already decreased, and ongoing drying in this area is assessed to be very likely. There’s strong evidence this trend contains a “signal” of climate change, otherwise known as a climate change “fingerprint”.

We understand the drying has been driven by changes in dominant weather patterns. And future projections of drying in the southwest are among the strongest in the world.

The situation in the southeast of Australia is not as clear, but there’s strong evidence for an ongoing decrease in rainfall here, too.

Yet, we find it has been wet in many southwest and southeast regions this year – including in the cool season. In fact, some areas received “very much above average” rainfall in the ten months to the end of October, seemingly defying the drying trend.

Left: trend in annual rainfall since 1950. Right: rainfall deciles for Jan-Oct 2021.
LARGE IMAGE

Variability is king in Australia

 Australia has always been the land of droughts and flooding rains. It’s normal to be beset by a multi-year drought, before experiencing major floods. Year-to-year variability here is large compared with most of the world’s other land regions.

In 2021, we’ve seen a wet swing of the climate needle due to several global climate drivers. Alongside the Pacific now being in the La Niña phase, the Indian Ocean Dipole is in a negative phase.

When we see these drivers line up, we know the deck is stacked for a wetter season. This is what we’ve always found, and we can count on Australia’s climate variability to remain, through this century and beyond.

So does a wet year cast doubt on our assessment of climate change? No.

In the 2020 State of the Climate report, released by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, we noted recent rainfall trends are tracking within projections.

Left: projected change in average precipitation at 3°C of global warming. Brown indicates decrease and green indicates increase. Right: projected change in heavy rainfall days (average heaviest daily rainfall of the year). Results show the average of all climate models (a central estimate) from the latest round of global modelling performed. Note there is a range of results around this model average. IPCC Interactive Atlas
In fact, we showed rainfall trends since the baseline of 1986-2005 to 2020 are tracking in the dry end of projections for the southwest and Victoria. This suggests that if anything, the projections are likely conservative.
Of course there are wet years, such as this year and also Victoria in 2010. But the longer-term trend has been downward. This is consistent with what we expect from climate change, after drawing on multiple lines of evidence and climate modelling.

2021 is not extraordinary in the long-term context. Even if the whole of 2021 ends up being very wet, it won’t shift the long-term trend by much. Only a persistent wet trend over decades or longer would raise questions about our assessment of climate change and current projections.

What does a ‘drier’ climate look like?

 As the global climate warms, global average rainfall is increasing – and we expect most regions of the world will actually become wetter.

But there are some regions which will get drier, including southern Australia, the Mediterranean and southern Africa. So what will this look like?

A trend towards a drier climate will come with a lot of ups and downs. For example, between 1900 and 2020 southwest Western Australia’s annual rainfall varied between about 393mm and 1035mm (-40% and +55% from the average). This is a huge range.

Climate projections suggest a persistent rainfall reduction of up to 15% in the southwest of Australia is plausible over the first part of this century. Change later in the century will depend on whether we limit further climate warming.

If we do limit it, we can expect the rainfall to decrease by up to 20%. If we don’t, it will decrease by up to 35% – with larger reductions very plausible in the cool season. In either case, these projected average changes are still smaller than the year-to-year variability recorded in Australia over many decades.

But this doesn’t mean the trends and projections aren’t important. A persistent and ongoing shifting towards drier conditions, with drier (and hotter) dry spells is a huge challenge for Australia’s water managers and primary producers. And with a lower rainfall average, the chances of unprecedented dry periods are higher.

Wet extremes expected

 But not every year will be a drought. There will still be wet days, months and years.

In fact, wet extremes are likely to increase despite the drying trend. Even in regions where the average rainfall is expected to decrease, there is a projected increase in intense rainfall bursts and rainfall extremes.

This includes intense hourly rainfalls that can lead to flash floods, as well as major rainfalls from “atmospheric rivers”, which are strong channels of concentrated moisture that stream through the atmosphere above us, delivering water for extreme rainfalls.

So for parts of southern Australia, a likely outcome is lower rainfall on average, but an increase in extreme rainfall events. With lower water availability overall, punctuated by intense flood risk, we can anticipate significant challenges ahead.

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(AU ABC) What Is The La Niña And What Does It Mean For Australian Weather?

ABC Weather - Kate Doyle

During a La Niña there are warmer than average waters in the western Pacific near Australia and cooler than average in the east. (Supplied: NOAA October 2021)

Invisible to us mere mortals on the ground, the atmosphere is full of giant circulations which transport, mix and disperse air and energy around the world.

One of these giant eddies is called the Walker Circulation.

The Walker Circulation strides the Pacific Ocean, rising in the west in the warm waters near Australia, pushing up and over the Pacific and descending near South America before racing back across the Pacific Ocean to form the trade winds.

Under normal conditions the Walker Circulation drives the trade winds across from the east to the west of the Pacific. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

La Niña is the term used to describe when the Walker Circulation is on steroids.

The western Pacific is even warmer than usual, the trade winds are stronger and all this moist energetic air is pushed onto Australia.

When there is a La Nina the Walker Circulation intensifies bringing wet and warm conditions to Australia. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

La Niña is therefore typically associated with wetter than average conditions for northern and eastern Australia, particularly in winter, spring and early summer.

La Niña events are typically associated with above average rainfall for northern and eastern Australia. (Supplied: Adobe Stock)

When the Walker Circulation is weakened, or even reversed, it is called the El Niño.

With the air now rising near South America and falling over the cooler-than-average oceans near Australia, less moisture is available and lift is discouraged, often resulting in drier than average conditions for northern and eastern Australia.

When there is an El Nino the Walker Circulation is reversed and downward pushing air brings dry conditions to Australia.(Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

What's in a name?

Together La Niña and El Niño are often referred to as the El Niño Southern Oscillation or ENSO.

The name El Niño was coined by South American fishermen in the 1600's who noticed unusually warm waters that often peaked around Christmas time.

They named the phenomena after 'El Niño de Navidad' after the Christ Child.

This evolved into just El Niño, 'the boy' and La Niña, 'the girl' to describe the opposite phase.

'La Niña' is the the girl child of the Pacific who brings flooding rains. (Supplied: Jenita Enevoldsen)

For any real keen weather watchers out there, there is another ENSO phase called El Niño Modoki. Where Modoki means 'same but different' in Japanese.

Or more boringly referred to as a Central Pacific El Niño.

This phase is when the air rises in the centre of the Pacific descending on both sides and discouraging rain.

What does La Niña mean for Australia?

Straight off the bat, no two La Niña events are exactly the same.

La Niña conditions don't cause any one individual downpour, rather they stack the underlying conditions full of moisture for when any individual weather event does come along.

La Niña's impact on summer rainfall is, in general, relatively less than it is in winter and spring but as it combines with the typical wet season for much of the north it can still help make things pretty wet. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

La Niña summers are therefore typically wetter than average and the warmer oceans also favour tropical cyclones.

The increased rainfall also results in increases in mosquito-borne diseases.

Big La Niña events of the past include the 1973 to 1976 La Niña, which was the longest sustained period of La Niña on record.

1974 still stands as Australia's wettest year on record and 1973 and 1975 also made the top five.

Brisbane's CBD was inundated in January 1974. (Royal Historical Society of Queensland)

Perhaps the most memorable event from these years was when Cyclone Wanda flooded Brisbane in the January of 1974.

More recently, 2010 to 2012 is notable for having two big La Niña summers in a row.

2010 and 2011 combined, resulted in the wettest 24 months on record.

Flooding was widespread from spring 2010 through to the end of summer 2011 — up and down the east coast.

Horror flash flooding washed away Grantham in South East Queensland's Lockyer Valley and Brisbane again went under water.

Lang Park under water during the 2011 floods. (Nearmap.com)
As these examples demonstrate, having two La Niña years in a row is fairly common.

This year's La Niña is again following on from one last year.

But thankfully this combination is not expected to be as extreme as these big events of the past.

How does La Niña impact the world?

 La Niña typically also brings wetter than average conditions to the nations north of Australia in our summer.

La Niña has flow-on effects that impact rainfall in many regions around the world. (Supplied: International Research Institute for Climate and Society Columbia University)

A La Niña will typically lead to drier than average conditions for the southern US over their winter.

A study published in Nature found ENSO may have had a role in 21 per cent of all civil conflicts between 1950 and 2004, and that new civil conflicts in the tropics were twice as likely to arise during El Niño years than La Niña.

La Niña and El Niño are not the only drivers

ENSO is only one of a set of climate systems that affect Australia.

The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is the other main year-to-year driver that influences Australia.

It gained household notoriety recently after its persistent positive phase took most of the blame for the drought that culminated in the 2019/2020 fires.

But other drivers like the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), and the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO), also play a part.

These are just some of the climate influences on Australia as explained by the Bureau of Meteorology. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)
These drivers can work to counter each other out or enhance the overall impact, as has been the case this spring as the developing La Niña and the decaying negative IOD have combined to encourage rain.

These drivers are happening on top of the backdrop of climate change, with seasonal changes and individual systems in the foreground.

It is a wonderfully complex world out there.

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24/11/2021

(The Conversation) The Seas Are Coming For Us In Kiribati. Will Australia Rehome Us?

The Conversation -  | 

Getty Images

Authors
  •  is a PhD Student, Australian National University
  •  is Distinguished Global Leader-in-Residence, University of Pennsylvania     
Our atoll nation is barely two metres above sea level, and the waters are coming for us.

Despite the progress and momentum of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, we are still not moving fast enough to avoid the worst of climate change.

It is heartening that more than 190 countries and organisations agreed to rapidly phase out coal power and end support for new coal power stations.

More than 100 countries signed a pledge to cut methane emissions 30% by the end of the decade, and about the same number agreed to stop deforestation on an industrial scale in the same timeframe.

But even with these agreements, we in Kiribati face the death of our homeland. Co-author Anote Tong led our country as president for 15 years, alongside lead author Akka Rimon, who was foreign secretary between 2014 and 2016.

Author Anote Tong, when he was Kiribati president, at the Pacific Islands Forum in 2015. Mick Tsikas/AAP


The problem is speed. Our land is disappearing faster than global action can stem climate change. Delays and a lack of global leadership mean the existence of small island states like Kiribati is now in the balance.

That means we must urgently find ways to rehome our people. It is very difficult to leave our homes, but there is no choice. Time is not on our side. We must prepare for a difficult future.

What we need is a model where displaced people can migrate to host nations when their homes become uninhabitable. Countries like Australia need workers – and we will soon need homes.

This is, increasingly, a question of justice. Australia’s actions, in particular, raise questions over how sincere it is in honouring its recent commitments at COP26.

As the world’s largest exporter of fossil gas and the second largest exporter of coal, Australia’s reluctance to change is putting its neighbours in the Pacific at risk of literally disappearing. It is the only developed nation not committed to cut emissions at least in half by 2030.

In Glasgow, Fiji urged Australia to take real action by halving emissions by 2030. Did it work? No. Australia also refused to sign the agreements on ending coal’s reign, with prominent politicians undermining the COP26 agreement as soon as the conference was over.

We desperately hope the commitments Australia did make at COP26 are not just words on paper. But if they are, that makes our need for certainty even more urgent.

Let us speak plainly: If Australia really does plan to sell as much of its fossil fuel reserves as possible and drag its feet on climate action, the least it can do is help us survive the rising seas caused by the burning of its coal and gas.

Kiribati’s Tarawa Atoll is home to more than half of the island nation’s far-flung population. European Space Agency, Flickr, CC BY-SA

To migrate with dignity

Eighteen years ago, the Kiribati government – then headed by Anote Tong – introduced a “migration with dignity” policy as a way for I-Kiribati people to adapt to climate change.

We gave our I-Kiribati workers international qualifications tailored for jobs in demand overseas. After this, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand set up a scheme to allow workers to migrate to New Zealand if they had an offer of a job. Each year prior to COVID, 75 people from Kiribati were able to migrate through the scheme.

New Zealand is the first and only country currently offering a permanent labour migration program from Kiribati. While welcome, we will need more places for I-Kiribati as climate change intensifies.

Like New Zealand, Australia has expanded its seasonal worker schemes for Pacific workers, and is now moving towards a longer stay, multi-visa arrangement under its Pacific Labour Scheme. We expect this scheme will evolve into a permanent migration scheme similar to New Zealand.

While we wait in hope for a true safe haven for our people, our diaspora is growing. I-Kiribati are moving now to Pacific countries higher above the water level such as Fiji, the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga.

Are we scared? Of course. We are on the front line of this crisis, despite having done amongst the least to cause it. It is difficult to leave the only home we have known. But science does not lie. And we can see the water coming.

Labour migration will not solve climate change, but it offers hope to those of us who will be displaced first.

This is a vital question of climate justice. This upheaval is caused by high-emitting economic powerhouses like the US, China, and the European Union. But the vulnerable are paying the full cost. That is not fair.

As climate change worsens, other global leaders must consider how best to support adaptation through labour mobility. Far better to plan for this now than to let climate change rage unchecked and trigger ever-larger waves of refugees.

The question of climate justice

Consider this: in 2018, each person in Kiribati was responsible for 0.95 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. By contrast, each person in the United States was responsible for 17.7 tonnes. Despite this imbalance, the US has taken little responsibility for what is happening to Kiribati and other low-lying nations.

We are hopeful this may change, given US President Joe Biden recently pledged to make his nation a leader in climate finance by supporting nations worst hit by climate change and with the least resources to cope.

It’s also encouraging that new laws have been proposed to allow people displaced by climate change to live in America.

We must work to slash emissions and devise solutions for the problems caused by the warming.

The highest point in Kiribati is 3 metres above sea level, with the average less than 2 metres. Erin Magee, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

International law must recognise climate displaced populations and create ways we can be rehoused.

While other solutions such as climate-proofing infrastructure or even floating islands have been proposed for Kiribati, these cannot happen overnight and are very expensive. By contrast, labour mobility is fast and advantageous to the host country.

Kiribati’s current government is working to increase skills and employability in our workforce. We are doing our part to get ready for the great dislocation.

When I-Kiribati have to migrate, we want them to be able to do so as first class citizens with access to secure futures rather than as climate refugees.

We are doing all we can to stay afloat in the years of ever angrier climate change. But it will take the global village to save our small village and keep alive our culture, language, heritage, spirits, land, waters and above all, our people.

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