Their fate isn’t sealed: Pacific nations can survive climate change – if locals take the lead

Rachel Clissold, The University of Queensland; Annah Piggott-McKellar, University of Melbourne; Karen E McNamara, The University of Queensland; Patrick D. Nunn, University of the Sunshine Coast; Roselyn Kumar, University of the Sunshine Coast, and Ross Westoby, Griffith University

They contribute only 0.03% of global carbon emissions, but small island developing states, particularly in the Pacific, are at extreme risk to the threats of climate change.

Our study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, provides the first mega-assessment on the progress of community-based adaptation in four Pacific Island countries: the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati and Vanuatu.

---

Read more:
Five years on from the earthquake in Bhaktapur, Nepal, heritage-led recovery is uniting community

---

Pacific Island nation communities have always been resilient, surviving on islands in the middle of oceans for more than 3,000 years. We can learn a lot from their adaptation methods, but climate change is an unprecedented challenge.

Effective adaptation is critical for ensuring Pacific Islanders continue living fulfilling lives in their homelands. For Australia’s part, we must ensure we’re supporting their diverse abilities and aspirations.

Short-sighted adaptation responses

Climate change brings wild, fierce and potentially more frequent hazards. In recent months, Cyclone Harold tore a strip through multiple Pacific countries, killing dozens of people, levelling homes and cutting communication lines. It may take Vanuatu a year to recover.

Expert commentary from 2019 highlighted that many adaptation responses in the Pacific have been short-sighted and, at times, even inadequate. The remains of failed seawalls, for example, litter the shorelines of many island countries, yet remain a popular adaptive solution. We cannot afford another few decades of this.

---

Read more:
Pacific island cities call for a rethink of climate resilience for the most vulnerable

---

International climate aid commitments from rich western countries barely scratch the surface of what’s needed, yet it’s likely funding will dry up for regions like the Pacific as governments scramble together money for their own countries’ escalating adaptation costs.

This includes Australia, that has long been, and continues to be, the leading donor to the region. Our government contributed about 40% of total aid between 2011 and 2017 and yet refuses to take meaningful action on climate change.

Understanding what successful adaptation should look like in developing island states is urgent to ensure existing funding creates the best outcomes.

Success stories

Our findings are based on community perspectives. We documented what factors lead to success and failure and what “best practice” might really look like.

We asked locals about the appropriateness, effectiveness, equity, impact and sustainability of the adaptation initiatives, and used this feedback to determine their success.

---

Read more:
For Pacific Island nations, rising sea levels are a bigger security concern than rising Chinese influence

---

The results were mixed. While our success stories illustrate what “best practice” involves, issues still emerged.

Our top two success stories centred on community efforts to protect local marine ecosystems in the Federated States of Micronesia and Vanuatu. Nearby communities rely on these ecosystems for food, income and for supporting cultural practice.

One initiative focused on establishing a marine park with protected areas while the other involved training in crown-of-thorns starfish control. As one person told us:

we think it’s great […] we see the results and know it’s our responsibility.

Initiatives that focus on both the community and the ecosystem support self-sufficiency, so the community can maintain the initiatives even after external bodies leave and funding ceases.

Pele Island, Vanuatu. Can you see coral in the water? The community initiative was aiming to protect this coral ecosystem from crown-of-thorns starfish.
Karen McNamara, Author provided

In these two instances, the “community” was expanded to the whole island and to anyone who utilised local ecosystems, such as fishers and tourism operators.

Through this, benefits were accessible to all: “all men, all women, all pikinini [children],” we were told.

Standing the test of time

In Vanuatu, the locals deemed two initiatives on raising climate change awareness as successful, with new scientific knowledge complementing traditional knowledge.

And in the Federated States of Micronesia, locals rated two initiatives on providing tanks for water security highly. This initiative addressed the communities’ primary concerns around clean water, but also had impact beyond merely climate-related vulnerabilities.

This was a relatively simple solution that also improved financial security and minimised pollution because people no longer needed to travel to other islands to buy bottled water.

Aniwa, Vanuatu. A communal building in the village has a noticeboard, put up as part of one of the climate-awareness raising initiatives.
Rachel Clissold, Author provided

But even among success stories, standing the test of time was a challenge.

For example, while these water security initiatives boosted short-term coping capacities, they weren’t flexible for coping with likely future changes in drought severity and duration.

---

Read more:
Pacific islands are not passive victims of climate change, but will need help

---

Adaptation needs better future planning, especially by those who understand local processes best: the community.

Listening to locals

For an adaptation initiative to be successful, our research found it must include:

1. local approval and ownership

2. shared access and benefit for community members

3. integration of local context and livelihoods

4. big picture thinking and forward planning.

To achieve these, practitioners and researchers need to rethink community-based adaptation as more than being simply “based” in communities where ideas are imposed on them, but rather as something they wholly lead.

Communities must acknowledge and build on their strengths and traditional values, and drive their own adaptation agendas – even if this means questioning well-intentioned foreign agencies.

Being good neighbours

Pacific Islands are not passive, helpless victims, but they’ll still need help to deal with climate change.

Pacific Island leaders need more than kind words from Australian leaders.

---

Read more:
Pacific Island nations will no longer stand for Australia’s inaction on climate change

---

Last year, Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, took to Facebook to remind Australia:

by working closely together, we can turn the tides in this battle – the most urgent crisis facing not only the Pacific, but the world.

Together, we can ensure that we are earthly stewards of Fiji, Australia, and the ocean that unites us.

Together, we can pass down a planet that our children are proud to inherit.

Rachel Clissold, Researcher, The University of Queensland; Annah Piggott-McKellar, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Melbourne; Karen E McNamara, Associate professor, The University of Queensland; Patrick D. Nunn, Professor of Geography, School of Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast; Roselyn Kumar, , University of the Sunshine Coast, and Ross Westoby, Research Fellow, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Advertisement

The good, the bad and the ugly: the nations leading and failing on climate action

Children play near a coal-fired power plant in the town of Obilic, Kosovo, in November 2018.
EPA/Valdrin Xhemaj

Bill Hare, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

This piece is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.

It is almost five years since the landmark Paris deal was struck. Nearly 200 countries agreed to work towards limiting global warming to 1.5℃, beyond which the planet is expected to slide irreversibly towards devastating climate change impacts.

But few nations are on track to reaching this goal. Right now, we’re heading to warming above 3℃ by 2100 – and this will have catastrophic consequences for the planet.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called a major climate summit in New York on September 23, where countries are expected to announce more ambitious climate targets than they set in Paris, and solid plans to achieve them.

Ahead of the summit, let’s take stock of the world’s best and worst performers when it comes to tackling the climate emergency.

A man standing near a wind farm near Urumuqi, China.
Qilai Shen/EPA

Australia is keeping poor company

The Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific analysis produced by two research organisations tracking climate action since 2009. It monitors 32 countries, accounting for more than 80% of global emissions.

We looked in detail at who has made the most progress since 2015, and who has done the least. Australia sits firmly in the group of governments we labelled as actually delaying global climate action, alongside the United States (which under President Donald Trump has walked away from the Paris agreement altogether).

Other countries delaying global climate action with highly insufficient targets and no progress since 2015 are the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia.

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, past and projected. Data drawn from Department of the Environment and Energy report titled ‘Australia’s emissions projections 2018’
Department of the Environment and Energy

Today, Australia’s emissions are at a seven-year high, and continue to rise. The government’s commitment to fossil fuels remains unwavering – from coal projects such as Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine in Queensland to huge new gas projects.

Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal, providing 29% of coal’s global trade, and last year also became the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. Its exported fossil fuel emissions currently represent around 3.6% of global emissions.

The surprising success stories

Ethiopia, Morocco and India top the list of countries doing the most to tackle climate change. In total, eight international jurisdictions have made good progress since 2015, including the European Union, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, and Argentina (although they still have a lot of work ahead to meet the 1.5℃ goal).

While India still relies on coal, its renewables industry is making huge leaps forward, with investments in renewable energy topping fossil fuel investments. The country is expected to over-achieve its Paris Agreement target.

Lightning in the night sky over the Odervorland wind farm near Sieversdorf, Germany.
Patrick Pleul/DPA

So what are they doing right? Costa Rica’s national decarbonisation plan covers the entire economy, including electrifying the public transport system, and huge energy efficiency measures in the industry, transport and buildings sectors. Costa Rica has also put a moratorium on new oil production.

The EU is set to overachieve its 2030 target of reducing emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and is in the process of considering an increase in this to at least 50%. It has recently increased its renewable energy and energy efficiency goals, and is sorting out its emissions trading scheme, with prices of emission units increasing.

---

Read more:
Australia to attend climate summit empty-handed despite UN pleas to ‘come with a plan’

---

This, together with past investments in renewable energy, have helped to achieve a 15% reduction in German electricity sector emissions in the first half of 2019. Whilst Germany has missed its 2020 targets, it has begun a process to phase out coal no later than 2038 – still a number of years too late for a Paris-compatible pathway.

Quitting coal is key

An increasing number of countries are adopting net zero emissions targets, many of them in the European Union, and some outside. Some, like the UK, have dumped coal, and are well on the way to achieving those targets.

A global phase-out of coal for electricity is the single most important step toward achieving the 1.5℃ warming limit. At the latest, this should be achieved by 2050 globally, by 2030 in the OECD and 2040 in China and other Asian countries.

There are some signs of optimism here. On one estimate, the number of coal projects in the pipeline shrunk by nearly 70% between 2015 and 2018, and investors are increasingly wary of the technology. Yet coal is still set to boom in Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan and Turkey.

Under current polities, the world is set for more than 3°C of warming by 2100.
Climate Action Tracker

---

Read more:
The gloves are off: ‘predatory’ climate deniers are a threat to our children

---

In 2018, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions reached a historic high. While coal reversed its recent decline, emissions from natural gas surged by 4.6%.

Renewable energy is the key to unlocking rapid decarbonisation. It already supplies more than 26% of global electricity generation and its costs are dropping rapidly. To accelerate this fundamental transition, more governments need to adopt and improve policies that enable renewable technologies to be rolled out faster. This would contribute to low-carbon economic development and job creation.

Don’t forget about trees

Nowhere is the alarming rate of global deforestation more obvious than in Brazil, now in the middle of a record fire season. It adds to damage wrought by President Jair Bolsonaro who has weakened his country’s institutional framework preventing forest loss.

In 2018, Brazil recorded the world’s highest loss of tropical primary rainforest of any country – 1.3 million hectares – largely in the Amazon. The deforestation reached 7,900 square km in 2018, a 72% increase from the historic low in 2012.

Fire fighting efforts this month in an indigenous reserve in Humaita, in Brazil’s Amazon forest.
FERNANDO BIZERRA/EPA

The past few weeks have shown us what 1℃ of global warming means. Hurricane Dorian, fuelled by high sea-surface temperatures, wiped out the northern Bahamas. Temperatures in the 40s set records across Europe. And in Queensland, the earliest fire season on record destroyed homes and razed rainforests.

The predicted 3℃ of warming by 2100 will bring a lot worse: widespread crop failures, dead coral reefs, more extreme heat waves and major threats to water supply and human health.

The world can avoid this, but time is running out.

Bill Hare, Director, Climate Analytics, Adjunct Professor, Murdoch University (Perth), Visiting scientist, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Pacific Island nations will no longer stand for Australia’s inaction on climate change

Michael O’Keefe, La Trobe University

The Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Tuvalu this week has ended in open division over climate change. Australia ensured its official communique watered down commitments to respond to climate change, gaining a hollow victory.

Traditionally, communiques capture the consensus reached at the meeting. In this case, the division on display between Australia and the Pacific meant the only commitment is to commission yet another report into what action needs to be taken.

The cost of Australia’s victory is likely to be great, as it questions the sincerity of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s commitment to “step up” engagement in the Pacific.

---

Read more:
Can Scott Morrison deliver on climate change in Tuvalu – or is his Pacific ‘step up’ doomed?

---

Australia’s stance on climate change has become untenable in the Pacific. The inability to meet Pacific Island expectations will erode Australia’s influence and leadership credentials in the region, and provide opportunities for other countries to grow influence in the region.

An unprecedented show of dissent

When Morrison arrived in Tuvalu, he was met with an uncompromising mood. In fact, the text of an official communique was only finished after 12 hours of pointed negotiations.

While the “need for urgent, immediate actions on the threats and challenges of climate change”, is acknowledged, the Pacific was looking for action, not words.

What’s more, the document reaffirmed that “strong political leadership to advance climate change action” was needed, but leadership from Australia was sorely missing. It led Tuvaluan Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga to note:

I think we can say we should’ve done more work for our people.

Presumably, he would have hoped Australia could be convinced to take more climate action.

In an unprecedented show of dissent, smaller Pacific Island countries produced the alternative Kainaki II Declaration. It captures the mood of the Pacific in relation to the existential threat posed by climate change, and the need to act decisively now to ensure their survival.

And it details the commitments needed to effectively address the threat of climate change. It’s clear nothing short of transformational change is needed to ensure their survival, and there is rising frustration in Australia’s repeated delays to take effective action.

Australia hasn’t endorsed the alternative declaration and Canberra has signalled once and for all that compromise on climate change is not possible. This is not what Pacific leaders hoped for and will come at a diplomatic cost to Australia.

---

Read more:
Response to rumours of a Chinese military base in Vanuatu speaks volumes about Australian foreign policy

---

Canberra can’t buy off the Pacific

Conflict had already begun brewing in the lead up to the Pacific Islands Forum. The Pacific Islands Development Forum – the brainchild of the Fijian government, which sought a forum to engage with Pacific Island Nations without the influence of Australia and New Zealand – released the the Nadi Bay Declaration in July this year.

This declaration called on coal producing countries like Australia to cease all production within a decade.

But it’s clear Canberra believes compromise of this sort on climate change would undermine Australia’s economic growth and this is the key stumbling block to Australia answering its Pacific critics with action.

As Sopoaga said to Morrison:

You are concerned about saving your economy in Australia […] I am concerned about saving my people in Tuvalu.

And a day before the meeting, Canberra announced half a billion dollars to tackle climate change in the region. But it received a lukewarm reception from the Pacific.

The message is clear: Canberra cannot buy off the Pacific. In part, this is because Pacific Island countries have new options, especially from China, which has offered Pacific island countries concessional loans.

---

Read more:
As Australia’s soft power in the Pacific fades, China’s voice gets louder

---

China is becoming an attractive alternate partner

As tension built at the Pacific Island Forum meeting, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters argued there was a double standard with respect to the treatment of China on climate change.

China is the world’s largest emitter of climate change gasses, but if there is a double standard it’s of Australia’s making.

Australia purports to be part of the Pacific family that can speak and act to protect the interests of Pacific Island countries in the face of China’s “insidious” attempts to gain influence through “debt trap” diplomacy. This is where unsustainable loans are offered with the aim of gaining political advantage.

But countering Chinese influence in the Pacific is Australia’s prime security interest, and is a secondary issue for the Pacific.

But unlike Australia, China has never claimed the moral high ground and provides an attractive alternative partner, so it will likely gain ground in the battle for influence in the Pacific.

For the Pacific Island Forum itself, open dissent is a very un-Pacific outcome. Open dissent highlights the strains in the region’s premier intergovernmental organisation.

Australia and (to a lesser extent) New Zealand’s dominance has often been a source of criticism, but growing confidence among Pacific leaders has changed diplomatic dynamics forever.

---

Read more:
Climate change forced these Fijian communities to move – and with 80 more at risk, here’s what they learned

---

This new pacific diplomacy has led Pacific leaders to more steadfastly identify their security interests. And for them, the need to respond to climate change is non-negotiable.

If winning the geopolitical contest with China in Pacific is Canberra’s priority, then far greater creativity will be needed as meeting the Pacific half way on climate change is a prerequisite for success.

Michael O’Keefe, Head of Department, Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Pacific nations aren’t cash-hungry, minister, they just want action on climate change

Environment Minister Melissa Price is accused of insulting Kiribati’s former president, saying he was only in Australia “for the cash”.
Lukas Coch/AAP

Katerina Teaiwa, Australian National University

Environment Minister Melissa Price has been trending on Twitter this week – and not for any good environmental reasons.

Price was introduced to the former president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, during a dinner at a Canberra restaurant hosted by Labor Senator Pat Dodson. Tong has brought global attention to his country because of the existential challenges it faces from climate change and rising sea levels.

According to Dodson, Price made what many have deemed an insulting comment to Tong:

I know why you’re here. It’s for the cash. For the Pacific it’s always about the cash. I have my chequebook here. How much do you want?

Others at the restaurant verified Dodson’s version of the incident. For his part, Tong said he has some hearing problems and others closer to Price could better hear what she said.

My response on Twitter was that in Kiribati, it’s rude to call out bad behaviour in public.

Maybe Price thought she was making a good Aussie joke. Or maybe she’d observed other members of her party laughing at the expense of the Pacific and wanted to crack one like the rest of the boys.

---

Read more:
For Pacific Island nations, rising sea levels are a bigger security concern than rising Chinese influence

---

Peter Dutton’s foray into comedy in 2015 springs to mind. In response to a quip by then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott about how islanders are not good at being on time, Dutton said:

Time doesn’t mean anything when you’re about to have water lapping at your door.

Water lapping at the door apparently doesn’t translate into concern over climate change and global warming – a matter of urgency for the low-lying island nations in the Pacific.

Rather than share the concerns of Pacific leaders on this issue, some Australian politicians have chosen to trivialise them and accuse Pacific nations of only being interested in a cash grab.

Just last month, Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald also accused Pacific nations of swindling money from Australia to address the effects of rising sea levels. The Sydney Morning Herald reported him saying:

They might be Pacific islanders, but there’s no doubting their wisdom and their ability to extract a dollar where they see it.

If Macdonald had been listening to the Canberra speech last month by Dame Meg Taylor, the secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum, he would have heard a very different message:

It is absolutely essential that we work together to move the discussion with Australia to develop a pathway that will minimise the impacts of climate change for the future of all … including Australia.

So far this call has fallen on deaf ears.

Australia’s history of phosphate extraction

Australians know well how polite and friendly Pacific people are. Flights to Fiji during school holidays are packed with families seeking sun, sand and true island hospitality. But both the shallow view of the Pacific as a paradise, and political slurs of cash-hungry islanders, reveal a deep Australian ignorance of Pacific histories, environments, peoples and cultural values, and of Australia’s projects of colonial extraction in the region.

For over a century, Australia has had an intense social and cultural relationship with Oceania, paralleling its economic and geo-strategic interests, and not just with Papua New Guinea or Melanesian states.

From the start of the 20th century, Australian mining companies began extracting phosphate as fast as they could from Nauru and Banaba island (in what is now Kiribati) in order to grow the country’s agricultural industry.

Australian mining officials and workers on Banaba.
National Archives of Australia/Author provided

And grow it did, exponentially, while consuming the landscapes of much smaller Pacific islands. Pacific phosphate – and the superphosphate fertiliser it produced – was the magic dust of Australian agriculture. Little could have been grown here without it, as Australia has always been “a continent of soils with a low plant nutrient supply”.

But decades of phosphate mining on Banaba stripped away about 90% of the island’s surface. By the late 1970s, when the mining operations ended, 22 million tons of land had been removed. The island wasn’t rehabilitated and all the mining infrastructure was left to rust and decay.

---

Read more:
Pacific pariah: how Australia’s love of coal has left it out in the diplomatic cold

---

Many Banabans were relocated to Rabi Island in Fiji over the years, including my grandfather. It was a migration that foreshadows future relocations that many Pacific islanders face due to climate change.

It’s hypocritical for Australian leaders to accuse the Pacific of being solely after money, when Australia exploited Banaba and other Pacific islands in this way. At a time, when the future of many Pacific nations is under threat, a little compassion, responsibility and real action on climate change is in order, not jokes or barbs at islanders’ expense.

Katerina Teaiwa, Associate Professor, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

For Pacific Island nations, rising sea levels are a bigger security concern than rising Chinese influence

Malcolm Turnbull promised to ‘step up’ Australian engagement with the Pacific last year. Will it continue now that he’s gone?
Lukas Coch/AAP

Michael O’Keefe, La Trobe University

When the Pacific Islands Forum is held in Nauru from September 1, one of the main objectives will be signing a wide-ranging security agreement that covers everything from defence and law and order concerns to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

The key question heading into the forum is: can the agreement find a balance between the security priorities of Australia and New Zealand and the needs of the Pacific Island nations?

Even though new Prime Minister Scott Morrison is not attending the forum, sending Foreign Minister Marise Payne instead, the Biketawa Plus security agreement remains a key aim for Canberra.

---

Read more:
Why China’s ‘debt-book diplomacy’ in the Pacific shouldn’t ring alarm bells just yet

---

The original Biketawa Declaration was developed as a response to the 2000 coup in Fiji. It has served Australia and the region well, providing a framework for collective action when political tensions and crises occur. However, in the face of rapid change, it looks narrow and dated.

Why act now? The rationale is clear. Much has happened to alter the security landscape in the Pacific since 2000. But despite the commentary in Australia, security in the Pacific is not all about geopolitics. While Australia may be most worried about China’s rising influence in the region, it would be a mistake to think this is the primary preoccupation of Pacific leaders, too.

A focus on climate change as a security issue

One key reason for updating Biketawa is to realign Australia’s security interests with those of Pacific Island countries that have grown more aware of their shared interests and confident in expressing them in international relations. This growing confidence is clear in the lobbying of Pacific nations for climate change action at the United Nations and in Fiji’s role as president of the UN’s COP23 climate talks.

In the absence of direct military threats, the Pacific Island nations are most concerned about security of a different kind. Key issues for the region are sustainable growth along a “blue-green” model, climate change (especially the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters and rising sea levels), illegal fishing and over-fishing, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), transnational crime, money laundering and human trafficking.

---

Read more:
Pacific pariah: how Australia’s love of coal has left it out in the diplomatic cold

---

Some of these security issues can be addressed by redirecting more Australian military forces to the region. Indeed, “disaster diplomacy” has been an effective method of connecting Australia’s security interests with those of Pacific Island nations in the past.

However, other priorities for the Pacific seem to run counter to Australia’s current policies toward the region. For example, the Pacific’s sustainable “blue-green” development agenda seems incompatible with an export-oriented growth model that is often touted by Australia as an “aid for trade” solution to Pacific “problems”.

Climate change adaptation and mitigation must also be elevated to the top of the agenda in Australia’s relations with the region. It is the most pressing problem in the Pacific, but for political and economic reasons, it hasn’t resonated to the same extent with Canberra.

In fact, Australia has recently been identified as the worst-performing country in the world on climate action. This has not gone unnoticed in the Pacific. Fiji’s prime minister, in particular, has been clear in highlighting that Australia’s “selfish” stance on climate change undermines its credibility in the region.

These shifting priorities in the Pacific present a greater challenge for Australia, especially now that there are more players in the region, such as China, Russia and Indonesia. Australia may see these “outsiders” as potential threats, but Pacific nations are just as likely to view them as alternative development partners able to provide opportunities.

New Coalition team on the Pacific

Making matters even trickier is the leadership shake-up in Canberra. What’s perhaps most problematic is Julie Bishop’s departure as foreign minister. Bishop did more to engage with Pacific countries than any foreign minister in recent memory. The [2017 Foreign Policy White Paper], for example, prioritised increased Pacific engagement and led to the region receiving the lion’s share of Australia’s latest aid budget.

Payne will attend the Pacific Islands Forum on her first overseas visit as foreign minister. As the former defence minister, she lobbied for Australia to be seen as a “security partner of choice” in the Pacific. What remains to be seen is whether she can maintain the momentum on Biketawa Plus.

---

Read more:
Response to rumours of a Chinese military base in Vanuatu speaks volumes about Australian foreign policy

---

So the challenge for the new Coalition leadership is to find a way to push through a new Pacific security agreement that caters to both Australia’s security concerns about Chinese influence in the region and the Pacific Island countries’ focus on climate change and sustainable growth.

There are lessons that can be drawn from the decade-long negotiations between Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Island nations over the Pacer Plus free-trade agreement, which was finally signed last year (without the region’s two largest economies, Papua New Guinea and Fiji). Australia must not underestimate the diplomatic skills of Pacific leaders or offer benefits that are perceived as being more attractive to it than the Pacific states.

Australia must also avoid allowing the leadership spill to impact its Pacific agenda at this sensitive time. Bishop’s focus on labour mobility between the Pacific islands and Australia has been most welcome, but there can be no authentic engagement with the region without addressing climate insecurity as well.

Michael O’Keefe, Head of Department, Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Don’t give up on Pacific Island nations yet

Jon Barnett, University of Melbourne

Fiji’s presidency of this year’s United Nations climate summit has put a renewed focus on the future of low-lying Pacific Islands. And while we should not ignore the plight of these nations, it is just as damaging to assume that their fate is already sealed.

Many people in Australia consider island nations such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands to be almost synonymous with impending climate catastrophe. After returning from Papua New Guinea in 2015, federal immigration minister Peter Dutton infamously joked that “time doesn’t mean anything when you’re about to have water lapping at your door”.

If influential and everyday Australians, and the rest of the world, hold the view that Pacific Island nations are doomed to succumb to climate change, the danger is that this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

---

Read more: Australia doesn’t ‘get’ the environmental challenges faced by Pacific Islanders

---

When we deny the possibility of a future for low-lying small islands, we are
admitting defeat. This in turn undermines the impetus to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and find ways to help communities carry on living in their island homes. It leaves us unable to discuss any options besides palliative responses for climate refugees.

There are other consequences of this pessimistic framing of islands. It may
undermine efforts to sustainably manage environments, because a finite future is
anathema to the sustaining resources in perpetuity. It can also manifest itself in harmful local narratives of denial or self-blame. And it can lead to climate change being blamed for environmental impacts that arise from local practices, which then remain unchanged.

We would do well to listen instead to what the leaders of low-lying island nations are saying, such as Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga, who told the 2013 Warsaw climate summit:

… some have suggested that the people of Tuvalu can move elsewhere. Let
me say in direct terms. We do not want to move. Such suggestions are
offensive to the people of Tuvalu. Our lives and culture are based on our
continued existence on the islands of Tuvalu. We will survive.

Those sentiments were echoed by the late Tony de Brum, former foreign minister of the Marshall Islands and described as the “voice of the Pacific Islands on climate change”, who said in 2015:

Displacement is not an option we relish or cherish and we will not operate on that basis. We will operate on the basis that we can in fact help to prevent this from happening.

Determined to survive

These leaders are determined for good reasons. Small islands are likely to respond in a host of different ways to climate change, depending on their geology, local wave patterns, regional differences in sea-level rise, and how their corals, mangroves and other wildlife respond to changing temperatures and weather patterns.

Evidence suggests that even seemingly very similar island types may respond very differently to one another. In many cases it is too early to say for sure that climate change will make a particular island uninhabitable.

But perhaps even more important in the future of low-lying small islands is the
way people adapt to climate change. There are all sorts of ways in which people can adapt their environments to changing conditions. Indeed, when the first migrants arrived in the low-lying atolls of Micronesia more than 3,000 years ago they found sand islands with no surface water and little soil, and settled them with only what they had in their small boats. Modern technologies and engineering systems can transform islands even more substantially, so that people can still live meaningful lives on them under changed climate conditions.

Adapting islands to climate change will not be easy. It will involve changes in where and how things are built, what people eat, how they get their water and energy, and what their islands look like.

It will also involve changes in institutions that are fundamental to island
societies, such as those concerned with land and marine tenure. But it can be done, with ingenuity, careful and long-term planning, technology transfer, and
meaningful partnerships between governments and international agencies.

Failure so far

Frustratingly, however, the international community is so far failing island states when it comes to this crucial adaptation. Despite their acute vulnerability having been recognised for at least 30 years, low-lying atoll countries such as Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu are attracting only low or moderate amounts of international adaptation funding. This is mostly as part of larger regional projects, and often focused on building capacity rather than implementing actual changes.

It is we who have failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to help low-lying islands adapt, and it is we who cannot imagine any long-term future for them. It seems all we can do is talk about loss, migration, and waves of climate refugees. Having let them down twice, this defeatist thinking risks denying them an independent future for a third time. This is environmental neo-colonialism.

---

Read more: Islands lost to the waves: how rising seas washed away part of Micronesia’s 19th-century history

---

The international community has a moral responsibility to deliver a
comprehensive strategy to minimise the risks climate change poses to remote
low-lying islands. People living on these islands have a legal and moral right to lead dignified lives in their homelands, free from the interference of climate impacts. People who live in affluent countries high above sea level have several responsibilities here.

First, as most of us agree, we should reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. We have some control over that through how we consume, invest, vote and travel. Second, we should insist that our governments do more to help low-lying states to adapt to climate change. It is our pollution, after all. And we should argue for a reversal in our declining aid budgets.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, we should all stop talking down the future of low-lying small islands, because all this does is hasten their demise.

Jon Barnett, Professor, School of Geography, University of Melbourne

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

While nations play politics, cities and states are taking up the climate challenge

Michael Mintrom, Monash University

Last week, Donald Trump entered the White House Rose Garden and announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord. In doing so, he fulfilled his campaign promise to “cancel” the Paris deal, a move that calls into question the future of the entire agreement.

In withdrawing, Trump cited the (arguably short-term) sacrifice the agreement requires of the US. This perspective fulfils the famous prediction made by economist Garrett Hardin in the 1960s: the “tragedy of the commons”. Hardin wrote that self-interest drives individuals to exploit collective resources in the short term, even to their long-term detriment.

Hardin and those following him thought the only way to avoid this tragedy was by securing collective agreements. That is why so many people view the Paris Accord as a vital mechanism for addressing climate change. It is also why the US withdrawal is devastating.

But another famous economist, Elinor Ostrom, saw things differently. Writing after the demise of the Kyoto Agreement but before the Paris Accord, Ostrom said that faith in multinational accords to address climate change was misplaced. Ostrom saw the limits of such collective action. Crucially, Ostrom suggested that we should also recognise the potential of localised collective action.

And already there are examples in both the developed and developing world that this is happening right now.

The new global leadership

Ultimately, efforts to reduce global warming are advanced by the pedestrian, daily choices of households, businesses, and sub-national governments. Millions of local choices can have global effects, for good or ill.

It’s clear that Trump is stepping away from global leadership on climate change. But in response, the state governors of Washington, New York and California declared they remain committed to the Paris climate targets. Since then, a further 10 US states have joined the budding Climate Alliance.

In the past two decades, mounting evidence has shown the power of such efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. These efforts have been driven by policy entrepreneurs – people with vision, energy, and the collaborative instincts required to promote collective action. A classic example is provided by the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who in 2005 invited mayors from other mega-cities to join him in promoting climate change efforts. That initiative has spurred many more, with transformative effects.

Looking around the world, we can see the diversity of localised initiatives in place to address climate change.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, traffic congestion and pollution are being addressed by providing better public transport options and more bicycle lanes.

In Ethiopia, the Addis Ababa Light Rail Transport Project aims to reduce significantly the greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

In India, Kolkata has implemented the Solid Waste Management Improvement Project, which is reducing the release of methane emissions, while contributing to improved public sanitation.

Across Europe, cities have started emulating meat-free Thursdays, which originated in Ghent, Belgium. Aside from other benefits, reducing meat consumption can reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.

In the US, leaders in cities and states have done much to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by cars and coal-fired power plants, for example through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Globally, the Carbon Disclosure Project has significantly influenced actions of businesses and governments alike.

Particularly important for smaller developing countries is the Cartegena Dialogue. It creates opportunities for leaders to share strategies for mitigating climate change and – just as urgently, especially for small Pacific nations – adapting to it.

The Paris Accord is a landmark, multilateral initiative. The withdrawal of the US is appalling, and deserves a strong rebuke. But it does not foreshadow the unravelling of multilateral resolve for addressing climate change.

The backslappers in Washington have had their Rose Garden moment. Elsewhere, energetic policy entrepreneurs are mobilising. Grounded in their communities, they are acting to protect the planet for today’s young people, and for those not yet born. That too, is global leadership.

Michael Mintrom, Professor of Public Sector Management, Monash University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Climate Change Impact

Pacific islands are not passive victims of climate change, but will need help

Jeremy Kohlitz, University of Technology Sydney and Pierre Mukheibir, University of Technology Sydney

As Prime Minister Tony Abbott attends the Pacific Island Forum summit today, attention has again turned to how the low-lying islands will deal with global warming. Pacific leaders have been highly critical of Australia’s post-2020 climate target.

A report released for the forum has argued that Australia’s approach threatens “the very survival of some Pacific nations” and is incompatible with limiting warming to 2C. Pacific leaders are calling for a more ambitious global limit of 1.5C above pre-industrial average temperatures.

Half a degree may not seem like much, but the latest scientific assessments indicate that evidence supporting the initial limit of 2C has weakened over the past decade. A goal of 1.5C may avoid some very high risks for small islands associated with 2C warming.

Failing to keep global warming to below a 1.5C increase is likely to put undue pressure on the Pacific island countries through more frequent climate- and weather-induced disasters, as well as speeding up inundation from sea-level rise.

Altered climate and weather patterns are already being observed in the Pacific region. These are expected to continue in the coming years, potentially changing the nature and frequency of disasters and their associated emergencies.

Cyclone Pam’s devastation of Vanuatu, catastrophic flooding in Kiribati and Tuvalu six months ago, and ongoing drought in Papua New Guinea serve as stark illustrations of what life in the Pacific islands may become amid future human-induced climate change.

Resilience in the Pacific

Such images have often led to Pacific islands being characterised as passive and helpless victims of climate change with no other choice but to flee from rising sea levels.

This rhetoric builds on colonial perceptions of Pacific islands suffering from geographic “smallness”, isolation and being resource-poor; notions that Pacific scholars consider belittling. There is, in fact, good reason to believe that Pacific islands and their inhabitants are not inherently vulnerable.

And while sea-level rise is perhaps the most critical driver of environmental change in the Pacific, the rate of change will still mean that in all likelihood people will still be living on low-lying atolls for at least the next 30-50 years.

The use of indigenous knowledge has allowed Pacific islanders to monitor and plan for basic needs – such as food, water, energy and shelter – and manage their livelihoods under varying climatic and weather conditions in the past.

Many people, such as the i-Kiribati, have continuously been adapting to gradually changing conditions to this day. There is no reason to suggest that they cannot continue to adapt in the future.

Incorporating both scientific and indigenous indicators or thresholds to provide some early warning of significant change will allow for timely responses to changes in resource availability or severe weather events. At a community level, this means understanding and supporting local decision-making, self-reliance and participatory processes.

The threat of more frequent disasters

However, with more frequent disasters, the social capital and resilience to withstand and overcome repeated disaster impacts is likely to be reduced, making it harder for Pacific islands to recover, in turn making them more vulnerable.

Under this scenario, indigenous knowledge and local agency will not be enough to cope with frequent impacts. Pacific islands in general have limited human resources for health and disaster response, and a lack of clear policies for requesting overseas assistance, from Australia for example, has constrained their capacity for timely responses to disasters.

External assistance for Pacific islands to cope with more frequent disasters is no doubt needed, but for the best outcomes it must complement and build on the existing capacity and norms of Pacific institutions and communities.

For example, increased incidences of future climate-induced disasters are expected to have significant implications for disaster and emergency preparedness for Pacific islands.

Research by Anna Gero and colleagues at the Institute for Sustainable Futures found that disaster-response systems in Pacific islands have in the past been enhanced by strong informal communication such as including the participation of traditional leaders and churches.

Failing to keep global warming to below a 1.5C increase will see the incidence of disasters increasing. Such a scenario will be too severe for community structures to repeatedly cope with.

As a disaster support agent in the Pacific, Australia will therefore have further demands placed on its disaster response capabilities. In addition to technical and medical support, post-disaster psychosocial support to rebuild social capital and resilience, which has in the past been neglected, will become an ever-increasing need.

Is the solution for the Pacific islands migration or resettlement? Not yet.

This drastic option can be delayed and even avoided by slowing global warming through aggressive emissions reductions. Aggressive mitigation at an international level must be part of a climate risk-reduction strategy. But Pacific islands will also need culturally appropriate adaptation support from Australia and other states that builds on the existing capacity of the islands.

Jeremy Kohlitz, PhD candidate, University of Technology Sydney and Pierre Mukheibir, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Wealthy nations overlook the dangers of climate change

Alex Lo, University of Hong Kong

Do rich countries care more about the environment that poorer ones? In a recent study I found that’s not necessarily the case. The reason comes down to danger: poorer nations are more worried about risks such as flooding, so are more concerned about environmental impacts that might increase these risks, such as climate change.

But even that’s not the full story.

Social scientists have long argued that public support for environmental protection increases with wealth, an outcome of “post-materialism”.

Recent cross-national studies have shown that people in wealthier nations are more likely to take actions to protect the environment, such as paying higher prices or taxes to ensure better environmental quality. Those in lower-income countries are less likely to do so. It is not difficult to see why. Resource constraints and education are key factors affecting intention to contribute.

Others argue that environmental concern in affluent societies is not higher. Put it this way: economically disadvantaged societies are equally and perhaps increasingly concerned about nature. This may be related to income growth, but this would mean the most affluent societies would still do better on the environmental concern scale than the less fortunate ones (not necessarily the poorest).

Is this really the case?

Mixed concerns

There is no single answer.

Take climate change as an example. Certainly Australians have done quite a lot to mitigate climate change, such as installing solar panels on rooftops.

But would the average Australian care more about climate change than, say, an ordinary Vanuatuan? Yes and no.

Yes, because Australians, with higher incomes, have more resources for supporting their action and are therefore more willing (or able) to act.

No, because climate change is an everyday threat to the livelihoods of Vanuatuans, whereas Australians have greater capacity for managing bad consequences and reducing climate risks to acceptable levels.

The “no” tells a different story. Action, or intended action, is one thing. Danger, or perceived danger, is another. Environmental concern can be defined in both terms, but they respond to national income in opposite ways. This means wealth has mixed effects on environmental concern.

My report shows that the richer are indeed relatively less concerned about the danger of environmental problems than the poorer.

As gross domestic product (GDP) per capita increases, concern about environmental risks goes down, across 35 countries worldwide. Wealthier nations include Australia and the United States, while the lower-income ones include South Africa and the Philippines.

The latter group tend to see potential threats to the environment caused by human interventions (such as air and water pollution, genetic modification of crops, climate change, nuclear power plants) as more dangerous than the former group do. People in affluent societies see these environmental risks as lower.

Poorer nations more vulnerable

One reason for this is that people in wealthier nations tend to see these risks as manageable and therefore not a matter of great concern relative to how the rest of the world sees them. The report also shows that environmental risk perception decreases with adaptive capacity, which refers to a country’s ability to attract and mobilise resources to cope with changes in future conditions.

Richer countries have better infrastructure, technologies, social security systems, emergency supplies and community supports to help their citizens cope with catastrophic events. Greater capacity to cope gives people a stronger sense of collective security – they feel protected from environmental changes.

This is just like households with insurance which might see themselves at lower risk from flooding, as they assume themselves to be financially protected.

People with multiple residential properties in disparate locations are less likely to worry about forced relocation or homelessness as a result of flooding or other disruptive natural hazards. Without such protection, people living on margins see themselves as being at higher risk (of almost everything). So they are more concerned about the consequences of environmental stresses.

This is the case even if we only look at “remote” sources of danger, such as GM food and climate change. Not all poorer nations are directly and significantly affected by these changes; some wealthier ones are actually under greater threat.

However, GDP per person is still negatively related to perception of these risks. Australians and Dutch, both well informed of and highly exposed to climate change impacts, are the least likely to see temperature rises as very dangerous among the 35 countries.

This could be a recipe for bad adaptation to environmental change. The knowledge of better protection among the richer populations could elevate a collective self-assuring attitude.

This might prematurely undermine their caution about impending threats and consequently reduce motivation to strengthen or maintain capacity for dealing with environmental stressors.

Although Third World countries are not included in the study, these findings have implications for upper- and middle-income countries. This will be a bigger issue for emerging economies as people’s incomes and the capacity to cope are increasing, and their people feel more secure about changes in environmental conditions.

But the reality is that we live in an increasingly dangerous world as climate change accelerates.

Alex Lo is Assistant Professor, The Kadoorie Institute at University of Hong Kong.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.