Last year’s COP21 Paris agreement on climate change was “a positive outcome’ but did nowhere near enough to address the Pacific’s vulnerabilities, says a regional environmental leader.

Leota Kosi Latu, Director-General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), which has 26 member nations, said: “I think it’s a positive outcome for our regions and a positive outcome for our countries … but it’s not finished yet.”

Latu was giving the closing address to the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific climate change conference yesterday.

The secretariat had had several “key asks” for the Paris conference, most notably “a strong legally binding agreement,” recognition of small island developing states in the Pacific, an agreement to minimise temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and mitigation “architecture”.

Overall, Leota said he was happy with the agreement’s “balance of adaptation and mitigation”. Most of the Secretariat’s key demands were met, though Latu called the document “a compromise agreement”, adding: “One of my disappointments with the Paris agreements is that it didn’t address the issues of oceans.”

Disappointed over treatment
He was also disappointed by the document’s treatment of small island developing nations.

He had hoped to see special provisions for these countries, in acknowledgment that they were the “most vulnerable of the vulnerable” to climate change. The Paris agreement also failed to explicitly provide aid for Pacific countries hit by natural disaster.

The relatively low population of the Pacific should not diminish its importance, Leota added.

The area was “vast in terms of land and ocean” and larger than the whole of Europe. It also faced significant environmental challenges: “We’re talking about a region that is experiencing loss of biodiversity [and] faces challenges in terms of waste and marine pollution.”

Leota said Pacific Island nations “must lead the way,” in the international fight against climate change and should promptly ratify the Paris treaty – Fiji already has.

“We need to encourage countries to sign up,” he said.

SPREC’s new Pacific Climate Change Centre would help carry on the struggle, and the secretariat planned a “Climate Hub Centre of Excellence to help member countries to implement the Paris agreement, Leota added.

NZ ‘must act now’
Opposition Labour MP Su’a William Sio said in an impromptu address at the final forum to end the conference that New Zealand must act now on climate change

“These challenges are going to be there for some time to come,” he said.

Su’a pledged to take action in Parliament.

He hopes the New Zealand government can take greater action to combat climate change, beginning with an evaluation of “economic-envonmental activities”.

Su’a stressed the need to develop a model for an environmentally and economically sustainably society to “get people thinking about the end of the fossil fuel world”.

He also called for a worldwide recognition of “our universal responsibility to one another”.

“The activities of one countries does have an impact on other countries,” said Su’a. The voices of Pacific Island people  should be given consideration in Parliament on relevant issues.

Thomas Leaycraft is a Scoop student journalist intern covering the In the Eye of the Storm conference for Scoop, Asia Pacific Report and Evening Report.

Read more about the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific Climate Conference.

Paula Bennett, New Zealand’s Minister for Climate Change, has acknowledged that widespread action is needed to tackle climate change.

Making brief remarks at the In the Eye of The Storm Pacific climate change conference at Victoria University, Bennett said: “We all depend on collective actions to reduce emissions.”

She expressed hope for a productive discussion on climate change at the conference, and reaffirmed New Zealand’s commitment to lowering carbon emissions.

The government was “committed to reaching its ambitious target of reduce emissions by 30 percent by 2030”, though she insisted that “support for climate action has to support sustainable economic development”.

More efficient alternatives to vital technologies, particularly in agriculture, did not yet exist, the minister said.

Bennett added that she was disappointed with the results of the COP21 Paris climate change summit last year, but felt that the progress made at the conference should be acknowledged.

She also expressed hope for greater action by the international community to combat climate change, and insisted that Pacific nations were being well represented.

“New Zealand does not presume to speak for the Pacific … Pacific voices are heard loud and clear at the negotiation table.”

Thomas Leaycraft is a Scoop student journalist intern covering the In the Eye of the Storm conference for Scoop, Asia Pacific Report and Evening Report.

Read more about the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific Climate Conference.

Climate change activists have to be prepared for a confrontation with oil companies that will “flat out lie”, says environmental leader Bill McKibben.

McKibben, a professor of environmental journalism at Middlebury College and founder of the Pacific Climate Warriors, he was speaking yesterday to the In the Eye of the Storm conference from his office in Vermont, USA.

Noting how high the stakes were, he said there were “absolute survival risks in this century if we let the temperature go up even a little bit more”.

“Obviously if one degree [of warming] melts the Arctic, we don’t want to find out what 1.5 or two degrees would do.”

The world “couldn’t have civilisations like we do today” if the world warmed by the near three degrees rise possible under the pledges made at last year’s COP21 Paris climate conference.

McKibben also stressed the immorality of the oil industry and its influence in politics.

Reining in the industry
Oil companies “will flat out lie,” he said, singling out Exxon for particular criticism.

Despite having known about global warming 25 years ago, the firm had used that knowledge only to prepare its oil rigs for the rising sea level.

“We’re not engaged in an argument, we’re engaged in a fight … the fight is to see if we can rein in the power of that industry.”

Four-fifths of the world’s current fossil fuel reserves must go unused if runaway climate change was to be avoided, McKibben said.

“I don’t know if we can stop climate change. There are scientists who say we can’t,” he added.

Hope lay “in building big movements” that could break the back of the oil industry. But such an effort would require protests, civil disobedience, jail time, and “will require all of us”.

Thomas Leaycraft is a Scoop student journalist intern covering the In the Eye of the Storm conference for Scoop, Asia Pacific Report and Evening Report.

Read more about the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific Climate Conference.

Exxon ‘knew of climate change in 1981’

Praying for action on climate change and a kava ceremony in the heart of the Catholic Church were all part of the journey leading up to last year’s momentous COP21 Paris climate change talks, says the leader of the Pacific Climate Warriors.

Koreti Tiumalu told the In the Eye of the Storm climate change conference that she had seen many strange things in her life as an environmental activist.

A mother and former public servant, Tiumalu abandoned a life of financial stability to pursue a career as an activist when the Climate Warriors offered her a part-time position.

Minimal hours and pay forced her to make sacrifices such as selling her house and car.

The group comprises activists from 15 countries who have taken action regionally and across the world to combat climate change.

They were perhaps best known for using canoes in an attempt to prevent Australian coal ships from leaving port, she said.

Tiumalu said that those involved had wrongly believed that the police would protect their demonstration, when in fact police in speedboats and jet skis quickly broke through their makeshift blockade. However, the stunt garnered plenty of attention and support for the Climate Warriors.

In her speech, Tiumalu described spending time praying in the Vatican – before the Paris conference in November – on mats depicting stories from Pacific communities affected by climate change. She had wanted to “get right spiritually” before the conference.

The Climate Warriors also hosted the “first ever kava ceremony in the Vatican” with supportive Pacific island priests.

In the coming weeks, Tiumalu said the group would determine “what the Pacific Climate Warriors are going to look like over the next three years”.

She often worries about the future: “I’m nervous, it’s scary. You’ve seen the pictures of what they do to activists. But it’s not something we can afford not to do.”

She hoped that more young activists and public figures, like the Australian former rugby league star and American football running back Jarryd Hayne, would take interest in the Climate Warriors.

“That’s the other thing we need to do – empower our young people to be leaders.”

Tiumalu said her organisation appealed to the younger generation because of its noble cause and exciting work environment.

“We’ve got to have as much fun as we can … But we work hard and we love hard.”

Thomas Leaycraft is a Scoop student journalist intern covering the In the Eye of the Storm conference for Scoop, Asia Pacific Report and Evening Report.

Read more about the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific Climate Conference.

Pacific Climate Warriors celebrate Pope’s leadership

Pacific Island peoples could be “early reclaimers” of a zero-emissions lifestyle, while also urging the international community to take “extreme” mitigation measures, says Dayle Takitimu.

In her keynote address to the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific climate change conference, the indigenous rights and environmental lawyer said she had planned to discuss facts, figures and the details of international agreements, but had torn up her speech after attending the conference’s first day.

Instead, she said: “What I want to offer you today is a part of me, and a part of my truth.”

Arguments about climate change were often too technical and neglected the basic “truths” surrounding the issue, Takitimu added.

“Before we run to textbooks and graphs, it’s about being in touch with what we know, and being in touch with our ways of knowing.” Appreciating these truths — in particular the danger of a reckless disregard for the planet — was needed before serious action could take place.

Takitimu said politicians had all the necessary information to tackle climate change.

While scientists still debated the exact temperature and sea level rises likely over the next century, there were few unknowns regarding the causes of climate change.

‘We know who’s causing it’
“We know where it comes from, what’s causing it, who’s causing it, and that it’s repairable,” she said.

However, politicians chose not to act so as to maintain the status quo and please business interests.

“[Politics] is a dirty word for a reason. It’s cluttering up a lot of stuff.”

Emphasising her status as a prominent indigenous rights lawyer, Takitimu stressed the special, longstanding connection of native people to their land and the potential leadership role of Pacific Islanders in combating climate change.

“We can be early reclaimers of a zero-emissions lifestyle … It’s beautiful, it’s awesome, and we’re awesome.”

Takitimu also urged solidarity between Pacific Island peoples, calling on them to reform their bond as “Tangaroa people”.

A lifestyle of “intergenerational equity” was required to respect the land as the home of forbearers and descendants alike.

Complete trust
“Trust completely that we are worthy of the hope of our grandchildren,” she said.

The climate change discussion should shift towards resolutions – and more radical ones than were contemplated even at last year’s COP21 conference in Paris, Takitimu said.

“Paris was out of date before it was even signed. Extreme mitigation measures are now required … the window for incremental reduction has closed.”

Global climate change education was also needed to inform people about the gravity of the issue and the necessary action.

“Climate change exists between the ears of humanity … up here as a condition,” she said.

Correcting this condition meant spreading an understanding that climate change was a threat to human survival.

“They talk about us being greenies and trying to save the planet … no mate, we’re trying to save you.

Thomas Leaycraft is a Scoop student journalist intern covering the In the Eye of the Storm conference for Scoop, Asia Pacific Report and Evening Report.

Read more about the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific Climate Conference.

Luamanuvao Winnie Laban has been co-organising the university’s Pacific Climate Change conference In the Eye of the Storm this week, which has brought together top scientists, environmentalists, policy makers, community leaders and NGO representatives, from at least 17 Pacific nations.

“Yesterday we heard the President Anote Tong of Kiribati describe how some of the nation’s islands may disappear within two or three decades due to rising sea levels,” she said today.

“We also heard Professor James Renwick describe changes in rainfall, tropical cyclones and temperature extremes, which are having a devastating effect on food security and the communities.

“While the Paris Agreement at COP21 last year brings some hope for an international effort in the long term, that agreement does not address the effects of climate change—such as coastal erosion and insecure water supplies—being felt now by all Pacific people.”

Luamanuvao said the university was committed to working with other organisations to further enhance understanding and research into mitigation and adaptation efforts in the region.

On Thursday, the university will sign a memorandum of understanding with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), an Apia-based intergovernmental organisation of 26 nations for environmental protection and sustainable development.

The memorandum provides a framework of co-operation between Victoria and SPREP and includes action points such as collaborating on supporting awareness-raising efforts and consulting on social, economic, physical, political and environmental issues in areas such as coral research and enhancing biosecurity.

“This MoU is exactly the sort of action needed if the region is to have any hope of avoiding tragedy. By combining resources, expertise and networks we can work towards building resilience in the Pacific and protecting our environments, homes and livelihoods,” Luamanuvao said.

—

The “window of possibility” for less than 2 degree C temperature rise will close in the next 10 years, says Victoria University’s Dr Tim Naish, a keynote speaker at today’s In the Eye of the Storm Pacific Climate Change Conference.

Naish, a professor of glaciology, and Professor James Renwick of Victoria’s School of Geography and Environment and Earth Sciences, presented empirical evidence on the long and short-term implications of climate change.

Professor Renwick began the presentation, focusing largely on the consequences of the warming air.

”We’re going to see climate change for quite a long time yet regardless of what we do.”

Carbon dioxide concentration had “rocketed up in recent years”, and temperatures were correspondingly reaching historic heights.

The future held more extreme weather, explained Renwick. “The wet will get wetter and the dry will get drier.”

The weather patterns many nations relied upon for rain would be disrupted, and the warm air would carry more water, leading to more flooding and severe storms.

Oceanic temperature rise
Perhaps more significant than the atmospheric temperature increase was the oceanic temperature rise.

As 93.4 percent of warming occurred in the ocean, Renwick explained, this particularly affected the Pacific.

Even slight changes in temperature had extreme impact on aquatic microorganisms and corals that supported the aquatic food chains, and thus the fishing industry.

However, Renwick explained that perhaps the greatest consequence of the warming seas was glacial melting, which “is going to cause us all a problem around sea level rise”.

At its current trajectory, temperatures would rise by 4 or 5 degrees this century, although a potentially “unimaginable climate” could develop, with an average temperature rise of over 10 deg C and glacial meltdown.

Dr Renwick’s coworker, Professor Naish spoke more on the potential for catastrophic glacial meltdown during the second half of the presentation.

“We really don’t have a good handle on what the ice sheets are going to do… if they do something unpredictable, ‘all bets are off’.” Some research, said Dr Naish, even suggested that runaway glacial melting had already begun.

Long-term impacts
Professor Naish then launched into the long-term impacts of the melting glaciers and rising sea levels on the Pacific. As he explained, areas farthest from a melting ice sheet saw the greatest sea level rise, so the rapidly melting Arctic, where average temperatures were sky-rocketing, would have the greatest effect on the South Pacific.

“The Pacific will get up to 10 percent more sea level rise than the global rise,” said Naish; a total meltdown of all of earth’s glaciers at both poles could mean 20 or more metres of sea level rise.

The Pacific Islands nations were among the most vulnerable in the world to catastrophes of this nature.

Naish explained that such countries typically lacked the resources to brace against the coming seas and prepare for increased flooding.

In many places one-in-100-year flooding was becoming an annual event. These floods were catastrophic, grinding tourism to a halt, tainting water supplies, destroying homes and infrastructure, and damaging soil fertility.

Avoiding a drastic rise “requires very invasive mitigation and potentially the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere,” said Professor Naish, and should involve assistance for those island nations most effected by this crisis.

“Sea level rise will continue for thousands of years based on decisions we’ll make on mitigation over the next few decades.”

Thomas Leaycraft is a Scoop student journalist intern covering the In the Eye of the Storm conference for Scoop, Asia Pacific Report and Evening Report.

Read more about the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific Climate Conference.

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When Kiribati President Anote Tong told his story about climate change to the United Nations General Assembly, they didn’t listen.

“They only want to talk about terrorism,” Tong said. “Perhaps we should call it eco-terrorism. Then they might listen.”

Tong was giving the opening keynote speech at today’s In the Eye of the Storm Pacific climate change conference at Victoria University.

While he jokingly requested that New Zealand gift him Kapiti Island — near the capital of Wellington — in case the ocean should “swallow Kiribati”, his remarks painted a bleak picture of a disappearing island nation deeply affected by the rising sea.

Tong said he was often asked, ‘Why don’t you move back [up the main Tarawa Atoll]?’

His response: “Because if we move back, we fall off the other side.” In one recent boat outing, he saw several palm trees falling near the sea due to the worsening soil caused by the rising sea levels.

In Kiribati, houses, arable land, and entire villages were falling below sea level. In one village, only a church remained on a patch of high ground.

Protected church
Tong hoped this church could be protected against the encroaching waters, to serve as an illustration of the effects of the rising oceans on Kiribati.

“We have to undertake quite significant adaptation strategies,” he added. During storms, waves would often roll over much of Kiribati’s main populated atoll of Tarawa.

Building “sustainable” houses was also a major issue.

However, there was so much “momentum” behind climate change that Kiribati’s demise could be inevitable, needing a “plan B”: Kiribati had acquired a significant amount of land from Fiji for potential relocation.

Tong added that many of his citizens were already leaving for countries like New Zealand.

“People are moving because they fear their islands disappearing.”

However, he rejected the idea that these people were “climate refugees”, arguing that all those forced to leave should be welcomed as productive workers through standard immigration systems.

Kiribati’s commitment
Despite this, Tong said Kiribati had “made a commitment that our islands will never disappear”.

He had spent his three terms in office trying to get international action on climate change.

Making clear his frustration with international processes, he said that the UN frequently made agreements protecting people from being hurt by violence but would not do the same on climate change.

The international community had to recognise that “there are people being hurt” because of climate change.

Tong, who in a few weeks will conclude his final term in office, also criticised politicians for protecting coal mining interests and justifying their position by claiming it benefited workers.

“We mustn’t be so naïve … Coal miners don’t benefit, mine owners benefit.” Self-interested politicians were a major problem, he added.

“Governments don’t have a conscience, they only have elections … It becomes about your political career.”

‘Miracle in Paris’
Tong expressed his joy over the “miracle in Paris” following the COP 21 conference there in November last year.

“I hope that what happened in Paris will not be a repetition of what happened in Copenhagen,” he added, noting that it will be interesting to see which countries ratify the COP 21 agreement in the coming months – and then honour their pledges.

Tong concluded by addressing diplomats and other members of the audience who might have felt his speech criticised them. He told them: “If what I have said has made you feel uncomfortable, don’t feel comfortable, and do the right thing.”

Thomas Leaycraft is a Scoop student journalist intern covering the In the Eye of the Storm conference for Scoop, Asia Pacific Report and Evening Report.

Read more about the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific Climate Conference

New Zealand needs to acknowledge that Pacific Island nations face an “ecological holocaust” and “ecocide” thanks to climate change, says Dr Pala Molisa.

Molisa, a lecturer in accounting at Victoria University, will be leading the open forum at the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific climate change conference, which started today. Dr Molisa is also the MC of the conference.

“One of the reasons we call this … conference In the Eye of the Storm,” Molisa says, “is that the Pacific is one of the places where the impacts of climate change will be most severely felt and first felt.

“We’re going to lose islands – we’re going to lose whole countries – because of rising sea levels … The Pacific is one of the most vulnerable areas to these super storms and extreme weather events.”

The conference, which runs from today until Wednesday this week, will provide an unconventional look at climate change.

“It’s bringing amazing leaders and frontline activists from throughout the Pacific together,” says Molisa. The conference will discuss not only the immediate causes and effects of climate change but also the systemic issues behind it.

Though a lecturer in accounting, Molisa enlivens a traditionally “dry” field by “following the numbers” within social and economic frameworks, and looks at climate change through the lens of “the economic system powering it”.

‘Unrelated issues’
Most people view climate change and poverty as completely unrelated issues, but Molisa sees them both as the byproducts of a broken system.

“We can’t treat climate change as this standalone issue that’s separate from the mass extinction that’s going on in the oceans, that’s separate from deepening inequality.”

These things all directly result from “this economic system which is at the same time powering catastrophic climate change”.

He points to the recently signed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) as an example of these systemic flaws, arguing that its provisions – such as those that allow companies to sue government over laws that damage their profits – could make it difficult to impose environmental regulations that are in the public’s interest.

The TPPA, he says, “undermines our ability to respond effectively to these climate crises”.

Molisa is dissatisfied with the current volume and intensity of the national climate change discussion.

“Our language isn’t up to the task,” he says. “This is a life and death issue, and yet the language of most politicians and public policy-makers is not life and death, it’s wait and see, incremental change, and it’s [using] very sanitised language.”

Radical language
Molisa believes the lexicon for mainstream discussion has been stripped of the appropriate radical language. Words like “ecological holocaust”, “ecocide” and “biocide” should be part of society’s working vocabulary.

“Actions are predicated on our understanding of reality, so language is fundamental,” he says. “It rained in December in the Arctic – you know, rain! That should be world news! … What’s the thing before you have a WTF moment? This is a crisis!”

The conference takes place against a backdrop of international efforts to reduce carbon emissions, most recently the COP 21 Paris Climate Conference, where much of the international community pledged to reduce their carbon emissions in an attempt to limit global warming to a further 1.5 degrees.

Molisa applauds these recent efforts but still finds them “woefully inadequate”, noting that experts project that a catastrophic 2.7-3.5 degree rise could still occur even if all the current pledges are met.

“It’s a start, but it’s only aspirational,” he warns. “We are pushing ahead at our current trajectory at breakneck speed.” Drastic action is needed before climate change reaches “runaway” levels – if indeed it hasn’t already, he says.

The In the Eye of the Storm conference will look not only at the problems but also the solutions. While Pacific Island nations wield relatively little sway, they are not powerless in the international climate change discussion.

As well as continuing to fight for tougher international standards – and, indeed, their survival – at international summits, the people of the Pacific, Molisa says, must be “the moral voices at the forefront of climate discussions around the world”.

Thomas Leaycraft is a Scoop student journalist intern covering the In the Eye of the Storm conference for Scoop, Asia Pacific Report and Evening Report.

Read more about the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific Climate Conference
To read more from Dr Molisa, visit his blog at blackstone.net.nz