Australia's leaders must act on climate change - tomorrow is already too late

Australia's leaders must act on climate change - tomorrow is already too late

Started
9 May 2022
Signatures: 342Next goal: 500
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Tomorrow is Already Too Late

Click to watch: Extreme king tide recorded on Vaitupu - the largest atoll in Tuvalu 

In response to the outbursts over the new Solomon Islands agreement with China, Pacific Island leaders have once again had to remind Australia that climate change is the major strategic threat facing their peoples. The critical impacts of climate change on the region and its threat to the survival – cultural, economic and physical - of their peoples is a core message that the island leaders have been communicating since the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in 1991. 

In their latest statement issued on 29th April, the Pacific Elders Voice recalls: “At the 50th Pacific Islands Forum meeting in 2019, Leaders agreed to build on their Blue Pacific’s Call for Urgent Global Climate Change Action through the Kainaki II Declaration for Urgent Climate Action Now. The Pacific Elders’ Voice emphasises this call to our regional partners, particularly Australia, to undertake credible and urgent actions on climate change, to demonstrate their genuine commitment and empathy for this biggest security threat to the Pacific Island states. #5”

The latest IPCC reports leave no room for escape from responsibility for the criminal damage being inflicted on Australia’s neighbours – not only by the erosion and degradation of their living space – not to mention their territorial integrity and sovereignty – but on their entire way of life and unique cultural identities. As the IPCC co-chair Debra Roberts remarked: "Our report clearly indicates that places where people live and work may cease to exist, that ecosystems and species that we've all grown up with and that are central to our cultures and inform our languages may disappear.” The “may” in this statement is already becoming a reality in many Pacific communities.

A critical aspect of this issue is that Australia has been a full member of the Pacific Islands Forum since the beginning, and that, as the statements from the annual leaders' meetings were being drafted and issued, Australia was present, in the person of either our Prime Minister or Minister of Foreign Affairs. In the light of Australia’s dismally inadequate response to the climate emergency, we have to ask: what kind of diplomatic disregard, disdain or deceit has been at play in Australia’s relationship with the other members of its so-called “Pacific family”?

The Australian government needs to abandon its blatant disregard for the security interests of its Pacific neighbours. To respond to the climate emergency in a way that shows fundamental acknowledgement of and respect for the calls of the Pacific Island nations, urgent and credible action is needed.  

At the first sitting of Parliament following the upcoming federal election, following the necessary formalities, we call on Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese to hold a compulsory conference or joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament to develop a comprehensive agreed policy and plan to significantly reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Some of Australia’s leading and globally recognised climate scientists can be called upon as consultants to provide advice and review the outcomes.

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Signatures: 342Next goal: 500
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